I’m getting that frozen feeling again, which means that if I don’t start writing something, anything, I will go into a hellish hibernation. I get tetchy.

So, here I am. And, luckily, I have good news to report.

I had a good day.

A great day, actually.

And for two big reasons.

(Family really is everything, isn’t it?)

My son came for lunch. I was nervous. He’s working on issues of codependence (which he inherited from me). I’m working on issues of codependence as well.

My son is practicing drawing boundaries. As am I.

But, he is more diligent.

As a result, he has been… let’s just say austere.

My dear, mirthful firstborn who always had me in stitches seemed to have no sense of humor anymore.

I was nervous about the lunch.

I was also determined it would be amazing, at least in the food department. I felt that, at least, was something within my control.

And guess what? It was. Amazing, that is. I took my time, planned ahead, and was calm, collected, and ahead of schedule, and because of that, I was perfectly primed to be available when my son asked, last-minute, if I could pick him up from the mechanic up the hill, where he was dropping his car for an oil change. I leapt at the opportunity, and since I was ahead of schedule, it not only caused me no stress at all, but it was an indulgent delight.

It also hearkened to and aligned with the sage advice I received from my dear friend S. this week. I had spoken with her the day before, while assailed by doubt and fear. Everything I said, she countered with a re-frame. The next day, I asked her, that magic trick you did, reframing everything in the positive, is that a skill you’ve learned in your work, or does it come naturally (or both)?

She replied, I don’t think of it as positive, I think of it as staying on purpose. I am motivated by finding a purpose, big or small. That is the place I go for refuge (italics mine). I remind myself repeatedly throughout the day what is most important. Big purpose is staying healthy, meditation study, and art. Each of these things takes a lot of time. And then, anything for my kids, making their rooms nice, phone calls, airport pickups, etc. At this point in my life, time is very limited so I try to remember that. For me, all of these things are step-by-step building blocks. Not a straight line, but heading in the right direction. I think you face and must fight a lot of doubt and anxiety. That can obscure your purpose.

Okay. Talk about gratitude practice. Do I have a wise friend, or what? I have lots of them, actually, and they’re all rooting for me. I can root for myself too.

I have written down S.’s words on a post-it, and in my journal — twice — in an effort to commit them to memory, or at least to a tab in my brain that won’t get buried.

Just reading them again now brings me peace. Makes me sigh with relief and even, dare I say, joy and gratitude.

Back to my son’s visit.

I made Kay Chun’s Summer Corn and Seafood Chowder, which my dear friend E. and I made last weekend in Tahoe Meadows. It’s a winner! Be careful not to poach the seafood longer than 3-4 minutes — we overcooked ours a bit in Tahoe. The version I served my son was perfect. He arrived hungry, tucked in, and said, This is amazing!

And guess what? We had a great time. He wasn’t remote or austere. He made me laugh, and we shared a long hug. Tears now as I type this.

I’m so proud and grateful.

Here’s the recipe:

Summer Corn and Seafood Chowder

By Kay Chun
4 servings

Our Modifications: Add ¼ t. red pepper flakes. Use a whole can of coconut milk. Add the corn with the spinach at the end. Use cilantro and lime instead of chives and lemon (save some cilantro for garnish). Fish and shrimp only need a few minutes! Don’t overcook! Excellent!

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium leek, light green and white parts only, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced

2 ears fresh corn, kernels cut off, cobs scraped and cobs reserved (about 1½ cups kernels and scrapings)

3 garlic cloves, minced

8 ounces Yukon Gold or yellow potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes

1 (8-ounce) bottle clam juice

Salt and pepper

1 pound skinless cod fillets, cut into 1- to 1½-inch pieces

½ pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 cup unsweetened coconut milk

2 cups/2 ounces baby spinach

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon chopped chives, plus more for garnish

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

Crusty bread, for serving

Preparation

Step 1

In a large Dutch oven, heat oil over medium. Add leeks, corn kernels and corn scrapings, and cook, stirring occasionally, until leeks are softened but not browned, 3 minutes. Add garlic and stir until fragrant, 30 seconds.

Step 2

Add potatoes, clam juice, corn cobs and 2 cups of water, season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender and broth tastes like corn, about 15 minutes. (Mash up some of the potatoes if a thicker chowder is desired.) Discard corn cobs.

Step 3

Season cod and shrimp with salt and pepper and add to the pot. Stir in coconut milk, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until seafood is just opaque and cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes. Add spinach, lemon juice, chives and ginger, and cook just until spinach is wilted, 1 to 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Step 4

Divide chowder among bowls and garnish with chives and more pepper. Serve warm, with bread on the side.

When I saw them, I realized how lonely I’ve been in Madrid. I’ve made friends. I’ve met several great women I expect to stay in touch with. But, it’s just not the same as one’s old friends. My friends J. and X. know me, my home, my garden. They’ve attended my Christmas parties. They know my style, my kids, my story. My patterns, rituals, and ways. We share having lived together in a particular neighborhood at a particular time in Oakland, in the Bay Area, in Northern California, in the US. My new friends in Madrid, bless their hearts, don’t know me from Adam. I have no track record (nor do they).

J. and X. were in Bilbao for a cycling adventure through Basque Country. Bilbao was their first/staging stop in the journey. The entire group of bon vivants in their crew was from Taipei, all members of the same cycling group, and a diverse group they were, hailing from Australia, Germany, Singapore, Spain, Colombia, and other far-flung locales.

I joined the gang for dinner both nights they were here and was treated to some of the best dishes I’ve had in Spain. But, before all that, I met my friends, and they accompanied me to my pension, Pension Ama in Casco, Bilbao’s old town. We staked out spots on the bed (there was nowhere else to sit), chatted, and caught up for an hour or two. They were generous with their attention and made me feel good.

Friday

I met my pals for dinner the first night at Restaurante Batzoki in Barrio Deusto, a 35-minute walk on Google Maps. I thought I was running late so was practically skip-running along the dark and wide Nervión River, beneath awesome leafy Sycamores. It was just before 7:30 p.m., and the rays of the sun were growing long and slanted when I came unexpectedly upon the justifiably famous Guggenheim Museum across the river. I was thunderstruck. I began taking pictures of the mesmerizing burnished metallic facade, playing off the grey clouds and the reflecting river. It’s an astounding sight, and equally beautiful, it seemed, from all angles.

I picked up the pace again and made it breathless to Batzoki, to find no one there at all. I texted J. who said their staging meeting was going long. I settled in at the bar and made friends with C., a young Colombian bartender. We chatted about Medellin, Bogota, and Cali. He was impressed I knew those cities’ names, though I haven’t been there. He was more impressed that I knew Cali has a major dance scene. I knew all of this from my conversation with the young Colombian man I met on a bus tour to Toledo and Segovia a couple of months ago. C. has lived in Spain for three years and loves it. He needed to change his life, he said, so he came to Europe.

My friends arrived with their entourage of approximately 17. I was the odd duck, being the only person not cycling with the gang and having never met any of the folks. We sat at a long table against the wall. The young, charismatic, and talented tour operator N. sat with us, as did his lovely young wife L. We were served a fine mixed salad with fragrant tomatoes and white conserved asparagus (seen commonly here); the ubiquitous croquettes (which I still don’t love — to me they taste like fried, wet dough); an earthy, fragrant mushroom risotto-type offering; a divine seafood “cake” of various stacked morsels from the sea; a small, perfectly grilled and seasoned steak; and to round out the meal, a stellar example of Basque cheesecake, light and fluffy, and barely sweet. With a full-bodied Rioja alongside.

Walking back to my pension after dinner, I crossed the city on J.’s recommendation instead of retracing my steps along the river. The night was warm, my belly was full, and the streets were teeming with relaxed couples, elders, youngsters, and revelers simply strolling. I noted an unusual number of couples hand-in-hand in the warm night air, including several elderly couples. I also noticed several women in red dresses.

For quite a while I followed and was followed by (we took turns) two young men, or possibly boys. They may have been teens. They were very young, but I can’t tell ages anymore. They spoke Arabic—constantly, animatedly, happily. They were chums, possibly lovers, content in one another’s orbit. One of them, the taller, bigger one (and the one talking the most, and the most animatedly) wore blue-and-white, tie-dyed jeans with bright orange cloth stars sewn all over them, an orange shirt, and a delicate, white, women’s purse slung across his back with blocky tennis shoes and a squared-off black cap with a white frontispiece.

His style and insouciance made me smile. In fact, it brought me great joy. I wanted to be near this duo and stayed close to them for several blocks. When I stopped to look at something or snap a photo, they’d pass me, and we’d switch places. This happened several times. Finally, they crossed a street not on my way, and I let them go. I watched the orange shirt weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic until I could see it no longer.

Saturday

The next day, J. and X. had a warm-up ride. I drifted around Bilbao, with coffee as my first priority. I made the mistake of asking Perplexity (the AI app) for a recommendation and was led to a tourist trap in a plaza where I’m certain my coffee and croissant would have been nine euros and bad. I made my way back to Isipil Bar which I’d passed. Isipil is a great old-school spot. My croissant came glazed which wasn’t my preference, but my coffee was balanced, rich, and tasty. Next time, I’ll get their apparently famous Spanish tortilla or one of my faves, the tostada con tomate. AND, my bill was 4.12 euros, which is acceptable.

After breakfast, I made my way to the beautiful covered market, Mercado de la Ribera right on the river, where I first encountered a mushroom stall dedicated to all manner of vibrant mushrooms glowing in shades of white, cream, taupe, and nutmeg, a gaggle of excited shoppers purchasing their favorites.

The fishmongers were even more impressive than what I witnessed in Mallorca. Whole bonito on ice, scallops in their lacy shells, partially-skinned eels, huge, bumpy live crabs, plenty of octopus, flat turbot, orange-and-white-spangled fishies, sardines and anchovies, 8-inch langoustines and others of their ilk, bright red snappers (I think) that looked as though they were still alive (only temporarily stunned), and many other fish and sea creatures I couldn’t identify.

At the butchers, I passed a counter that specialized in goat, with three goat heads in the case, surprised eyes bugging out and black tongues lolling. At another stall, delicate “milk cows’ feet,” young, tiny, and pure white, twinged my heart. There was a long line at the chicken vendor, where the proprietor weighed a specimen with head, feet, and some feathers still attached.

As I exited the market, I again wondered why we don’t have markets like this. These shoppers were locals. It’s a real market. It’s beautiful—clean, elegant, dignified. Shopping there is a lovely experience. Why on earth do we have either disgusting Safeway or crazy-expensive pseudo-market hall experiences or pricey farmers’ markets? Why can’t we have a lovely food experience at a rational price in the US? I don’t get it.

Leaving the market, I stopped to gaze at the river and was jolted by the sight of a massive school of large fish swimming down the center, their ridged backs rippling the water’s surface from time to time. A living river!

I visited a bookstore called Librería Cámara. Two young girls read nestled among pillows in a lovely nook in the front, presided over by a trio of huge, vibrant, tropical plants. It was such a fetching sight I wanted to snap a photo but refrained. The store had two tiny shelves of books in English, including one called The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky that I now wish I’d purchased. As I pass the many windows hanging the Basque flag and today several Independencia signs, including two that said simply ‘Fuck Spain,’ I want to know more about the trouble here.

Next, I made my way to Parque de Doña Casilda to check out the outdoor gazebo area where I heard they’ll be showing the World Cup Final on a giant screen. I took pictures of stately magnolias shading the promenades with impossibly broad boughs, passed a duck pond with children playing in one of the tributaries, and made my way up a hill toward fountains and a sculpture of Doña Casilda herself, the wife of a banker who became one of Bilbao's great benefactors.

By then it was time for a break. It’s not hot like Madrid, but the afternoons are plenty warm. I had three gildas and a caña at Haven, a taberna on the edge of a broad plaza shaded by mature Sycamores and surrounded by handsome brick mansions. My gildas were served dripping copious amounts of good olive oil which soaked dutifully into the bread vehicle just like a good gilda should. My caña was served in a kind of wine glass, which seems to be typical up here.

A band of young people, like 13 of them, arrived with their abuela, whom they kept calling abuela, which is how I knew she was their abuela. She beamed and basked in their presence. It gave me a pang. What is wrong with Americans? I don’t think you’d see this there. Immigrant Americans, sure. But not the white ones. We shelve our elders in institutions when we deem them to be inconvenient.

After my beer break, I made my way back to my pension, took a nap, and got up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to meet J. and X. at La Mula de Moscu, a swanky, yet relaxed cocktail bar near our restaurant. I had a Black Chimba, comprised of Barceló Imperial rum, passion fruit, ginger syrup, cardamom, and cinnamon and served in a handsome black, rough-textured glass with a black (activated charcoal?), lightly sweet rim. Check out their beautiful, hand-drawn menu.

We made our way to dinner at Restaurante Markina, said to be one of the best restaurants in Bilbao, and it did not disappoint. Our six-course dinner got off to a good start with prime Iberian cold cuts, followed by crunchy croquettes (better than the usual suspects); tender, stuffed squid bodies in a dramatic squid-ink sauce; and unctuous, perfectly seasoned and prepared sliced pork neck, delectably tender and truly out of this world, served alongside French fries and a tangle of vivid, smoky-sweet, red bell pepper strips that exploded with flavor. A light, fluffy, outstanding Basque cheesecake was served with a berry sauce to polish us off.

At the end of the dinner, as we were taking our leave, L. the lovely young wife of N., the tour organizer and owner, said, You are a very interesting person. I enjoyed meeting and talking with you.

I melted. :)

Sunday

In the morning, I set out for a place AI had recommended (I know, what was I thinking—fooled again) called Barista’s Club (already a red flag). It was packed, with a line out the door. Since I was only one person, the hostess pulled me in and seated me on a very uncomfortable stool of some sort. I disliked the vibe. The interior was hot, stuffy, and shoddily decorated with tacky white stones, weird lights, and fake plants. The staff was overwhelmed, and I got the distinct impression the coffee would be both expensive and nothing to write home about. The croissants behind glass looked odd, with unnaturally-colored fillings poking out. I made a beeline for the exit.

A couple of doors down, I found Larralde, a historic pastry shop founded in 1910 and re-built in 1984 after the 1983 flood that devastated the old town and kicked off the effort at better flood control that included the magnificent re-development of the riverside and eventually, of course, the arrival of the Guggenheim that set Bilbao on a radically new trajectory. There was one other patron there, an elderly Spanish woman doing a crossword puzzle. The young lady behind the counter suggested a bollo de mantequilla, a fluffy oval roll filled with a whipped, lightly sweet butter that I quite liked. The coffee was good too.

I walked up the hill behind the Casco (old town) toward the 16th-century Begonia Basilica, dedicated to the virgin of Begonia and said to have a stunning gilded altar and an unusual sloping wooden floor. It’s quite a hike up many flights of stairs, or you can take the outdoor escalators! (I confess I took a couple.)

Halfway up, I got distracted by the Etxebarri Parkea, a park with views of the city below. As I was exploring, my phone rang, and I was reminded I was supposed to change rooms. I raced back, carted my stuff to my new room, set off again, then got distracted by Rio-Oja, a Basque restaurant where you can get “beef face, tripes, pork feets, lamb inside, and snail in red, spicy sauce,” among other things. I decided it was lunch time.

I was seated in a back room with blue-and-white tiled walls. A square red and white striped flag representing the region’s futbol team (I think) hung from the back wall. Large, diamond-shaped tiles set into the wall proclaimed some of the establishment’s offerings: Tapas, Cazuelas, Vino de Rioja. Several large mirrors bounced the light around. The wood trim was painted a deep teal. I tucked into a generous pile of juicy, perfectly seasoned lamb rib chops, sauteed red bell pepper, and French fries, with a glass of light Rioja. I couldn’t (or chose not to) resist (yet another) piece of light and lovely Basque cheesecake.

After lunch, I set off for a stroll in the general direction of Begonia again. I walked up Calle de Perro and snapped a picture of a virgin trapped under glass above an ornate carved stone doorway. Eventually, I found myself in the Santutxu neighborhood, a residential area marked by block after block of undistinguished modern apartment complexes. There were not many stores or points of interest as far as I could tell. I wended my way, got lost, and found myself on the edge of a vast park. I think I was in the Monte Avril area.

I followed a road down along the Nervión River (which, I’ve learned, isn’t a river, but an estuary). I passed under a very high bridge. Graffiti on the arch beneath the bridge read: Kukutza Aurrera — Basque for “Kukutza, onward.” Apparently, Kukutza was a building taken over and run by the community in Bilbao’s working-class Rekalde district from 1996 until 2011, when police evicted the residents and demolished the structure in a violent and heavily protested episode.

It was hot, and groves of wild figs scented the air. Seagulls flew overhead and strutted along the rocks poking out of the river. I passed a homeless man, some bikers, some walkers, and a dam. Eventually, the path rose up, away from the river, and I gradually found myself back in the city.

Within minutes, I’d stumbled upon Iglesia de la Encarnación, a breathtaking Gothic church with an arresting Renaissance portal of golden stone and a belfry with two bells — one big and one little, hanging from bright silver frames. Located in the Atxuri area at the edge of the old town, it’s a Dominican convent built in the early 1500s and still run by Dominican friars. Apparently, there are classical music concerts, and the old cloister holds the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art. Seated at a long outdoor table in the plaza was a party of about 15 enjoying a Sunday afternoon meal together.

As I entered Casco, I encountered not one but two signs on two different streets that said, Fuck Spain Fuck La Roja and Fuck Spain. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention, Palestinian flags are everywhere here, as well as signs in Basque with Spanish translations calling for “genocidal criminal Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest and imprisonment.”

I passed the old Ferrocarriles Vascongados (Basque Railways) station, a foreboding stone structure in the so-called neo-Basque style and the Bilbao Biscay Savings Bank (Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa), another impressive, golden-stoned building built in a French aristocratic style, and made the acquaintance of Don Klaudio Gallastegui (1906–1988), the parish priest of the San Antón church for over 40 years. A defender of the Basque language, he gave the first Mass in Basque in the city and preached openly against the Franco dictatorship.

When I finally reached my pension, having walked 20,000 steps, I showered and then made like a Spaniard and napped. When I awoke, it was time to start thinking about the World Cup Final. (!)

I got some sushi from a little Japanese concern across the street, found the game on Channel 1, and opened my balcony window. When the brass band began playing the Spanish anthem, a woman in the street yelled up at me to close my window (!). Of course, Spain played beautiful soccer and won in overtime. My neighbor in Madrid, Rafa, and I exchanged messages with bated breath as we watched it unfold. When Spain won, I thought the streets would explode in celebration, but they didn’t at all. Oh, right. I’m in Basque Country. I can only assume that’s the reason.

Monday

I went back to Isipil for breakfast. This time, I got the tostada de tomate. It came with a little plastic container of olive oil. I asked for salt. The barista, a gentle man, clearly the owner, made a motion to look under something. I looked all around, lifted my plate, my napkin, and whatever else I could find. Finally, a woman jumped up and showed me the little compartment for salt under the cover that you peel back, made just for this country’s penchant for tomato toast. Ingenious!

On my way out of Casco, I passed the Teatro Arriaga, Bilbao's grand opera house in a fabulous Beaux-Arts style. The soft bellies of the caryatids holding up the balcony above them were burnished fetchingly in the morning sunlight.

The beautiful Estación de Bilbao-Concordia, a Spanish Art Nouveau jewel, was perched right across the river, a great fan of green and gold spreading across its façade like a peacock's tail. The lettering across the front announces the old railway line it served, Ferrocarril de Santander á Bilbao (Santander to Bilbao Railway). One of the loveliest buildings I’ve seen, it was designed by Severino Achúcarro and inaugerated in 1898.

Plastered in the doorway of the building was a hand-lettered sign that read: “‘El mundo se debate en un desorden espantoso; solo un tonto no se da cuenta de la confusión; y el mundo es la proyección de nosotros mismos.’—Jiddu Krishnamurti,” translated as, The world is caught in a dreadful disorder; only a fool fails to notice the confusion; and the world is the projection of ourselves. —Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Indeed.

I ducked into the ubiquitous department store here, El Corte Ingles, to buy a brow pencil and was treated like garbage by not one but two makeup ladies. I made the fatal error of requesting face cream samples. Even though I’d already dropped what I consider to be serious cash for a single brow pencil, they treated me like a begging homeless person for asking. I tried at two counters. Same reaction. It was unpleasant, to say the least, but the real problem was that I allowed them to get to me and left cowering.

Walking ahead of me on the street were a mom and her son of about 12, hand-in-hand. The boy wore a tee-shirt, the back of which proclaimed: La Famille et L’Amour Sont Tout (Family and Love Are Everything). That cheered me up.

I felt like I wasn’t really getting the whole pintxo thing. I didn’t understand the big deal. I poked into a few pintxo joints around the Guggenheim, which was closed, but was unimpressed. I stopped, did a little research on Google Maps, and selected Bodegon Mendia in Barrio Santutxu, which I read would have “authentic” Bilbao pintxos. It was a good jaunt up the hill.

On the way, Restaurante Abando caught my eye with its handsome, matte-black paint, brass hardware, and sparkling glass windows. I ventured in, liked what I saw, and grabbed a corner seat at the bar. I was greeted by a 15-foot-long spread along the counter under glass of a sparkling, fresh, and delectable assortment of pintxos. I ordered a glass of Txacoli and selected octopus, salmon, and bacalao pintxos, and they were delightful. The place was hopping, and people were smiling and chattering.

On my way back to the pension for a nap, I ducked into the Palacio de las Libertades, also known as El Sitio, a 19th-century gentlemen’s club that named itself after a siege during the third (and last) Carlist war from 1872 to 1876. This is a series of wars I must confess I’d never heard of. Apparently, this was some sort of clash in the monarchy. The Carlists were supporters of Carlos versus his niece Isabel (whose supporters were called, you guessed it, Isabelinos) as the rightful next monarch in the 1830s.

The besiegers were traditionalists defending the old Basque fueros—local laws and rights that the Basque provinces had held for centuries, allowing them to govern their own affairs, including courts, taxes, and exemption from Spanish military conscription. Liberal, money-minded Bilbao sided against them, with Madrid. When the Carlists lost, Madrid stripped away their Basque rights as punishment. That betrayal is the basis for Basque nationalism today. El Sitio is a beautiful public library and event space now.

After my nap, I worked a little bit and then went out for a pintxo or two. I ended up at Berton Sasibil, where I got lackluster service and barely serviceable bites. The wine was also nothing to write home about. When I left, I strolled around the Casco, but the teeming tourists annoyed me. I crossed the bridge near the mercado to the hilly area on the other side of the river and was charmed to discover a number of cool, edgy venues with a clearly local youth- and immigrant-based patronage.

I was especially attracted to Dando La Brasa, perched near the crest of the hill, with its outdoor tables at a slant. Its patrons didn’t seem to mind. It was 10:30 when I showed up, and they were no longer serving food, but according stickers placed haphazardly in their windows, they’ve garnered awards for their cuisine. The place had a fun, edgy, artistic vibe. There was a small, casual craft beer joint across the street that looked and felt like a local hang. On my way back down the hill to re-cross the bridge, the lights of the cafes reflected and flickered in the inky waters.

Tuesday

I breakfasted at Isipil again. This time, I tried their tortilla, which is fab, the real deal, not too wet, not too dry, and nicely seasoned. My coffee was even better today. The same staff was there that’s been there the other two times I’ve visited. At least three different sets of children tried to climb the footrests to greet and chatter with the owner-barista who was utterly delighted by them. I got the feeling they do that a lot. The place was packed with elders, youths, and families. As far as I could tell, I was the only tourist.

I made my way to the Guggenheim, photographed the flowery dog in front, and found myself in a Jasper Johns exhibit, where I learned I like Jasper Johns more than I knew.

I had a caña on the patio at across the plaza from the Guggenheim and then lunch at The Bass Bilbao, where I experienced turbot for the first time — a lovely fish delightfully prepared, cooked just enough and served with gently fried potato rounds with a drizzle of a pesto-type sauce alongside a green and chicory salad.

On the way back to my pension, I stopped at Martina de Zuricalday, a patisserie founded in 1830. I was intrigued by a sign on the door that said, Martes, Día del Cliente. I followed my hunch and learned they had a special deal. I got a Lionesa, a cloud-like, ruffly eclair of sorts, basically a giant cream puff, for 1.49 euros.

Looking ahead

I have two more days in Bilbao before boarding my train back to Madrid on Friday morning. At that point, things will really be heating up in terms of my timeline. I leave for North American on July 28. I’m excited, no doubt about it. Spain is Spain. It’s wonderful here. It will still be here. I can always return. For now, though, I’m delighted to go home and check out the scene. I’ll keep faithfully reporting my experience. Thank you for accompanying me!

A new friend

I made a new friend yesterday, exactly a month before I’m due to leave Spain. And she’s a badass. I’m proud and excited. She’s smart, pretty, warm, fun, vivacious, and interesting. She’s French and has lived in 17 countries. She’s 52, retired, financially secure, and savvy, with a respectable career behind her. And she likes me!

Her name is K., and she came over to check out some things I had for sale. She bought my immersion blender, a glass carafe, and two plants. We talked about my decision to return to California for now. She understood completely.

She said, Yes, it makes sense. Go home, manage your house, work if you need to, figure out what you want. Think on it. It takes time. Now you know you can do this.

Another friend said simply, Just pull a M.

M. is a member of our 50+ ladies group who lives in Madrid for six months and in Maryland the other six. She doesn’t want to register to pay taxes just yet. I may just pull an M.

K. adores Madrid, incidentally. (Who doesn’t?) She gushed about the safety (as we all do), the vibrancy, the relaxed pace, the beauty, the food, the fun, the conviviality, and the relative affordability. All true, as I’ve related.

As she was leaving, she invited me to her home for lunch on Thursday, and it was the most natural thing in the world for her to do. There was no hesitation, no need to get to know me better, to vet me, or what have you. That’s tomorrow! I’ll bring something lovely.

The heat

It’s 97 degrees Fahrenheit in Madrid today, but as people told me when I arrived, it’s a dry heat, which does help. Still, most folks, me included (maybe me especially) hide during the mid-day hours when it’s hottest and brightest. We pull down our persianas, turn on the air conditioning if we’re lucky to have it, and retire to the relative peace and gloom of our inner sanctums.

It was 105 degrees in Berlin the other day. My friend A. is there now. She sent me a picture of the monitor on the train from Poland to Berlin on June 27th. It read 49 degrees C. — a frightening 120.2 F.

Fog

My friend J. posted a picture to her FB profile a few days ago of her Sunset District street in San Francisco, where the fog was as thick as pea soup, and the temperature was a brisk 51 degrees F. It looked like deep dusk. She said you couldn’t walk more than a few minutes without taking off your glasses and wiping them from the gathering moisture, and that you needed to turn on your windshield wipers after a couple of blocks.

I can’t wait to greet the morning fog, our faithful friend, our natural air conditioner. One morning last summer, I walked through a grove of massive, dark-trunked, dripping redwood trees in the Oakland hills, a ten-minute drive from my son’s apartment where I’ll be staying. It was quiet, dark, and wet. Fog blanketed everything and seemed to steam from the ground. The feeling was like being cosseted by these trees and the soft fog on a hallowed ground, in a cathedral of cool.

Bar Trafalgar

With my time dwindling, I’m being selective about how I spend it. I downloaded the Eater app, searched on “Madrid,” and I found myself at Bar Trafalgar yesterday, a swanky joint in hip Chamberí, where I enjoyed a glass of excellent young Mencia for… wait for it… three Euros, 80 centavos, or $4.32. Which leads me to my next (and enduring) obsession…

Wine prices

I’m getting scared about returning to California where a glass of bad wine is $17+. Always an affront, it is now an abomination. (I know I bring this up a lot.) I’m trying to prepare for it, to get ahead of it, so I’m not upset when I get there (and don’t drive my friends crazy complaining).

I’ll need strategies. I’m thinking I’ll re-join my wine club on Piedmont Avenue and have lots of picnics. In the Explorer’s Club (the best-value club offered), each glass works out to $3.75.

I can’t help but wonder, though, how is there not a business idea embedded in this problem? Obviously, people are gouging. California produces wine! Why isn’t it affordable for us? Why can’t I enjoy a glass away from home for $5.? Is it some vestige of prohibition, a morality tax of some kind? Or simple greed?

I’m sure there are people like me who want to live well and sensibly. We need to band together. That’s my intention — to be smart, clever, and learn how to get the most out of life in the San Francisco Bay Area — especially the East Bay — without breaking the bank.

Casa Pei+

I want to learn more about Korean food. Eater sent me to acclaimed Case Pei+, also in Chamberí, a 35-minute walk from my flat. It’s an unassuming spot — clean, bright, and boxy, with off-white, formica-topped tables, a counter and modest kitchen in back, and an airy upstairs loft.

I had the steamed pork and shrimp dumplings which came with a milder sauce than I would have liked or expected. The dumplings themselves were fragrant and tasty, with just the right amount of chew to the pastry. I ordered a small bowl of classic kimchi (not very spicy), a la carte. For dessert, I tucked into an exceptional homemade mochi that I won’t soon, if ever, forget. A soft, powdery, round rice pastry that seemed to float slightly off my plate, filled with delicate, sage-green matcha cream and the freshest, sweetest diced strawberries. It was something to write home about.

What I’ll miss about Madrid

I’m keeping a list of what I’ll miss about Madrid. First item is, my frutería, where I bought a bottle of shop-made gazpacho yesterday. Where there are vats of olives of every shade imaginable and stacked tins of sardines and cockles in every corner; bins of dark, shiny cherries an inch-and-a-half across; and baskets of blueberries as big as cherries. Everything is hyperfresh, and families run these shops and have been for generations, with grainy, black-and-white photos proudly displayed on the wall behind the cash register to prove it. I will miss Madrid’s fruterías.

I’ll keep adding to the list.

What I’m excited about

But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m excited to go home. And that while I love Madrid for certain, it’s not home. I need to go home. I’m homesick. I feel lost and displaced and lonely, even though I’ve made friends. I have no roots here. I don’t speak Spanish, and even if I embraced learning the language with everything I had (and I can’t, as I have bigger fish to fry), I would never be fluent.

And I don’t want to die here. I don’t want to get stuck here. I don’t want everyone to move on and forget me. I can’t bear that. And even if my kids are “launched,” I want to be where they can find me when they want me, when they’re ready. I want to hold down some kind of fort, even if it’s not wanted or needed at the moment.

It’s psychological.

I may return to Madrid or somewhere else, as I’ve said. There are many compelling reasons to live outside of the U.S. or California, not least of which is the financial aspect. (The political aspect goes without saying.)

But when I take into account the weakened dollar and the higher tax rate here, it’s not all that cheap. And at home, heck, we have Salvation Army, which I’ve always used liberally for everything I’ve needed. Furniture, home goods, and clothes are expensive here.

Sure, travel across Europe is cheap. Trains are so cheap. Wine is cheap. I can eat out here and not feel like I’m hemorrhaging. But it’s getting more expensive all the time. Foreigners, and especially Americans, are pouring in. I’m also not certain I want to be here for the backlash, which has already begun.

It’s not my home. I’m not even sure I have a right to be here. Sure, I have an EU passport, and that’s very cool. I’m legally allowed to be here. But, am I welcome? Not really. I’m not Spanish, not by genes or heritage.

Getting ready to live differently

I can’t live at home the same way I was living before. I need to make some major changes, beginning with NO MORE VICTIM COMPLEX.

I am privileged beyond belief. It’s time to acknowledge that. I am also powerful. I have ideas. I do know what I want even though the mean voice in my head likes to tell me this isn’t the case. I know what I want, and I have always known. How do you like them apples?

I will make more of an effort. I will nurture my friendships and communities. I will join groups. I will connect, even though everyone hides behind their doors, and the streets are largely empty. I will work hard to find a good way to live.

And I will get a job, hopefully one I can not only stomach, but believe in. Passionately.

I will continue working on my recovery from codependency. That means attending CODA meetings, changing the voice in my head, and developing healthy habits. I will fall in love with myself, as Derek Walcott beseeches us to do in his iconic poem, Love After Love.

My community post

I posted a Substack Note a couple of weeks ago with a picture of my neighbor and friend Rafa.

I simply said, This is Rafa. He doesn’t speak English. I don’t speak Spanish. But, we have a connection. We like each other. When I (reluctantly) asked him if he could water my plants while I was away, he said, Of course. I’m so glad you asked me because it shows you consider me a friend. I said (in my Note), it got me thinking about our American penchant for being independent and not wanting to bother others, our belief that to ask for help is always an imposition (as one commenter put it). The Note touched a nerve. It’s received 2209 likes and 38 re-stacks.

It got me thinking about community. People are lonely and scared. What can we do? What can we re-incorporate from the past? Before the Bowling Alone days? I believe there is much we can do, and we need to get to work. (Can $5. glasses of wine be part of this?)

I heard about a Netflix documentary called Join or Die about Robert Putnam and the crisis of collapsed social capital. Putnam is the author of Bowling Alone. In the film, he lays out how and why the fraying of social networks leads to authoritarian-leaning governments.

As Putnam says, Join a club. The fate of America depends on it.

Minnesota

I leave Madrid at the end of the month. I fly into Toronto and then make my way to Cache Lake, Ontario to visit a dear friend at her cabin. Then, I enjoy two weeks in Oakland before flying to Minneapolis for my stepson’s wedding.

I’ve never been to Minnesota! I’m staying in (on?) the North Loop (will find out what that means). If you’re in Minneapolis, hit me up for a coffee! (And tell me where to go for dinner! I’ve heard of Alma’s… reviews welcome!)

We pulled up to a romantic, russet-stoned, two-story home with an ancient well in front and heaps of hot-pink bougainvillea spilling from the rafters. I would soon discover a deeply-shaded porch running along the entire back of the house, furnished with comfy, oversized wicker sofas and armchairs and a rustic dining set where I whiled away several happy hours reading Wolf Hall, which I found on A.’s bookshelf.

A. and I spent three days in Pollença and the surrounding area. The first day we relaxed by the pool. I rescued struggling wasps from the water with bits of grass while we swam lazily in ovals and got to know one another. That evening, A. made a fragrant mushroom pasta, poured a light red wine, and served outside as the cicadas began to sing. She is a fine (meaning great) cook.

My had a cool stone floor and glossy, forest-green shutters. I slept like a baby in my room. A cool stone floor felt good under my bare feet. Heavy shutters painted high-gloss forest green kept the heat out. My big, comfy bed sported an airy summer duvet and down pillows the likes of which I didn’t know existed (can a pillow be gourmet? Okay: superior).

I woke each morning to a chorus of songbirds. I set my Merlin Bird ID app on the stone window sill and it methodically identified the cries, calls, whoops, and whistles of Zitting Cisticola, Common Chaffinch, European Greenfinch, Common Wood-Pigeon, Blue Rock-Thrush, Eurasian Collared-Dove, European Serin, Common Nightingale, Eurasian Blackbird, House Sparrow, European Goldfinch, Eurasian Thick-knee, Sardinian Warbler, Eurasian Blackcap, Spotted Flycatcher, Great Tit — and the Common Hoopoe, which is anything but.

It’s rare and a real treat to spot, with its black-and-white striped wings, marigold body, black-tipped crest, and long beak that ends in a blunt tip.

Pollença Town Center

On day two, A. and I drove to Pollença proper, where we visited a small church that had been turned into an art gallery. It was odd to see modern paintings on easels set in front of ancient, gilded altars glinting in the gloom behind them. Frankly, I was more interested in the altars. I was shocked that a country as Catholic as Spain would allow this apparent sacrilege. (A bit of Catholic conditioning there, maybe.)

I scaled the wide, stone Calvari Steps — 365 of them — to the tiny chapel at the top known as Oratorio del Calvario, where I was captivated by a charming iron chandelier I could easily imagine at a unique Spanish-Mediterranean apartment I once lived in. While A. did a little work from the cafe at the base of the steps, I wandered the streets of the town. I was dismayed by the number of stores (all of them, actually) that clearly catered to wealthy tourists. I almost felt like I was on a cruise ship. Or at Disneyland.

From there, we made our way to Port de Pollença, where we ambled along a wide pedestrian boulevard shaded by ancient pines trees. For lunch, we chose a hotel restaurant set on the turquoise waters of the curving Bay of Pollença, framed by the dusky, rocky Serra de Tramuntana and the Cap de Formentor. My stir-fried noodles were (less than) nothing to write home about, but hey, the view was to die for. After lunch, we swam and floated in the shallows of the salty sea, in sight of spectacular La Fortaleza, the 17th-century fortress perched across the small bay.

For the next two nights, we watched The Night Manager, a BBC/AMC series that showcased La Fortaleza as the villain’s (Hugh Laurie) luxurious lair. We laughed a lot and went gaga over sexy Tom Hiddleston (who, trust me, is much more handsome than his Wikipedia photo would have you believe).

Valldemossa

The following day, A. and I caught a bus to Valldemossa, a nearby village set in a picturesque valley surrounded by ancient, crumbling mountains with a keyhole-view of the turquoise sea below. We toured the monk’s cell at Cartuja de Valldemosa, the Carthusian Monastery built as a palace in 1309 and ceded to the Carthusian monks after the Mallorcan royal dynasty ended in 1399. This is where Frédéric Chopin and George Sand spent a winter together in 1838–39, famously chronicled in Sand’s A Winter in Mallorca.

An elegant little courtyard outside of the “cell,” (a cell I’d be willing to pay a lot to live in!) featured a garden flanked by a long stone trough filled with darting grey fish and butter-yellow water lilies. Old, hammered-copper vessels overflowed with begonias of every imaginable color. The dreamy view of the pristine village with its church towers and the sparkling sea below was a highlight.

Next, we toured the original, beautifully-appointed Moorish palace that made me keenly miss every antique I’d ever inherited and let go. We enjoyed a simple lunch of sandwiches with ham and a Minorcan cheese called Mahón (understand that “ham” is on a whole other level here) on a balustraded, raised veranda.

Trying to leave Valldemossa was a fright. As we made our way to the bus station, I glimpsed a narrow street feeding into the main plaza engorged with people all trudging the same direction (toward us) — tourists, of course. It was scary and depressing. A. said, And it’s not even prime tourist season yet. Mallorcans go out as little as possible in July and August to avoid the hordes.

At the transit station, the line was long. Tourists and locals grew restive and began pushing and feinting to get ahead of others. A woman behind me pressed her whole body against my back and began propelling me forward. But it was for nought. The first bus that arrived could only take a few people.

We waited for the next bus. People eyed each other distrustfully and jockeyed for position. I left at one point to see if a bus on the opposite side of the street might deliver us back to Palma. It would not. When I resumed my place by A.’s side, a woman cried, What are you doing, cutting the line? I said, I was here. I spoke to you a few minutes ago, remember? My quip about needing lottery tickets, or to draw straws?

She grumbled but quieted down. When the second bus arrived, a dear pair of older Irish ladies was shunted aside. A. used her body to block the rude tourists and guided the pair onto the bus. It was cutthroat and beyond depressing. It was also ridiculous. Over-tourism is a scourge. We’re consuming these beautiful places like a cloud of locusts, and I’m ashamed to be part of it.

Picnic at Sant Joan

On Sunday, A. and her husband D. took me to Els Calderers in Sant Joan, an incredible manor house in a bucolic setting that was once a large wine estate. First mentioned in historical records in 1285 as belonging to the Calderers family, the noble family Verí bought the estate in the 18th century.

We pretty much had the place to ourselves, which added a greater sense of romance and discovery. The place was beautifully furnished and appointed, as well, with much of the original furnishings, photos, and incredible care paid to details. There were even some good-looking mannequins.

A. brought an elegant picnic of very fine Jamón Ibérico, an array of exquisite Spanish cheeses, fresh, crusty bread, cherries, brownies, and a lovely light red wine which we scarfed on comfy antique wood benches in the shade along the back porch of the estate. A. was a little shy to eat there, as we literally looked like part of the exhibit, and some folks were starting to arrive, but she got over it. I was glad. I didn’t want to budge one bit.

Palma de Mallorca

The Mercat de l'Olivar was right around the corner from A.'s flat, so I stopped there first thing. Open since 1951, it's the largest covered food market in Palma, with over 100 stalls and the market of choice for many locals. The fish hall was especially impressive. Piles of plump red prawns, langoustines, lobsters, and endless varieties of abundantly fresh fish (look how clear the eyes are) on ice glistened under the lights. I took a picture. A man behind the counter raised his palm and said in English, Not of me. I flushed, deleted the photo in front of him, and left my phone alone. I bought A. some Colombian coffee beans from a coffee shop in the corner of the market.

Another day, I walked to the vibrant, historic Mercat de Santa Catalina founded in 1920 in a residential neighborhood west of the old town. It was less polished than the Mercat de l'Olivar, and less touristy. Inside a narrow food stalls, I ordered Frito Mallorquín, a traditional dish of diced lamb (sometimes pork) offal fried in olive oil with potatoes, red peppers, garlic, and wild fennel. The fennel was a surprise, adding a refreshing anise note.

The place was crowded. When I raised my phone to photograph the dish (and, let’s be honest, to get a sense of the establishment), the family at the next table turned in alarm. I quickly brought my phone to my lap. I don’t blame them. I got the vibe more than once that Mallorcans are exhausted by the intense tourism and probably have few places remaining that haven’t been infiltrated. I had a cold caña with the frito and thought, Okay. Perhaps fewer photos. Take notes.

I came upon the Cathedral of Palma by accident, which is always the best way to discover a sight this important. The timing was lucky too. The cathedral's golden sandstone glowed fetchingly in the low rays of the sun. La Seu, as the church is also known, sits right on the old city walls at the water's edge. Built on the site of a former mosque (like most of them), its Gothic nave rises 44 meters and is one of the tallest in the world. I thought I'd seen enough churches, but this one moved me more than most, perhaps because it was full of worshippers, with standing room only. A boys’ choir sang exquisite, wavering hymns at the front while priests performed the Mass, looking tiny against the soaring ceiling.

For three days while A. worked at home, I wandered the narrow streets of Palma. One afternoon, I found myself on La Rambla, a broad avenue shaded by mature sycamores, with fountains, marble benches, newspaper (!) kiosks, and tony shops.

Nearby, on the Paseo del Borne, I ducked into De Tokio a Lima at the Can Alomar hotel, a Japanese-Peruvian restaurant with two terraces on the second floor — a lounge on one side and a restaurant on the other, both overlooking the boulevard below. I had a glass of white wine in the dappled shade and watched the Sycamores’ leaves and branches sway in the breezes and change colors as evening approached. My happy place.

Close to the end of my stay, I finally tried an ensaïmada at charming Ca'n Joan de S'Aigo, a pastry and ice cream shop founded in 1700. I immediately understood why everyone swoons over them. The island's signature pastry is light, airy, and delicate, with just the right amount of chew. It’s utterly addictive. The only thing that saved me from eating too many is that I tend to avoid things dusted in confectioner’s sugar. It annoys me.

But, yes, this is a special treat indeed. The ensaïmada’s origins date to both Arab and Jewish Mallorca. The coiled shape is thought to derive from a Moorish sweet bread, while, it’s said, the Jewish community adapted it as their own Sabbath bread, made with olive oil. After the Inquisition forced mass conversions in 1492, conversos began substituting lard for olive oil as a (public, edible) declaration of Christian faith. The word ensaimada comes from saïm, the Mallorcan word for lard, which is what gives the pastry its unique softness.

On my last night, A., her elegant friend J., and I had dinner at La Rosa Vermuteria, a hip Spanish tavern offering a selection of more than 60 vermouths, classic and fancy tapas, including delicate lamb chops, and a respectable wine list. We laughed a lot. I think we reminisced about boys. J. told us how she’d set her sights on her husband and basically ensnared him (in the best possible way and to both of their delights). J. has lived in Spain for 40 years and longs to return to the U.S. (which I found interesting). Her Spanish husband prefers to remain in Spain.

I listened to a whole bunch of new music I’d discovered on Substack, including a talented Belarusian band called Soyuz. And I made lovely breakfasts of roasted Jimmy Nardelo peppers and eggplants, gently-fried eggs, and creamy plain yogurt with huge blueberries that popped in my mouth.

Now, at noon on Thursday, June 25th, it’s… storming! Thunder is rumbling, rain is pouring down in intermittent buckets, and children are shrieking in delight down the block. Neighbors are opening windows and peering out. And we’re all smiling.

Jurucha

Yesterday, I awoke to a text from my new friend M.: Coming down to Madrid today. Wanna hang?

I did indeed want to hang. I met her at 11:30 a.m. at Jurucha, a joint founded in 1962 that’s on more than one list of the best tapas and pintxos spots in Madrid. (Whereas tapas are delicacies served atop a slice of crusty bread, pintxos are offered via skewers or toothpicks and hail from the Basque country specifically.)

Jurucha is a class Spanish taberna, with a long, not-fancy bar crowded with patrons standing, in this case over their coffees, tortillas, and tomato toasts. That answered my question. Spaniards usually have lunch at 2:00 or 2:30, breakfast at 8 or so. We were in between those times. I was prepared to go breakfast or lunch direction.

M. ordered a cafe con leche, so I followed suit. I had the classic Madrileño Pan con Tomate (tomato-toast). M. had a silky tortilla de patata. Together, we admired a cadre of handsome Spanish men relaxing on the patio in polo shirts and sockless, tasseled loafers, baring trim, tanned ankles in this tony part of town.

Of course, I’ll have to return to Jurucha. The bacalao tapas under the glass particularly caught my eye, with their extra-thick slices of rehydrated salt cod. I realize “rehydrated salt cod” may not sound particularly appetizing, but believe me, it is! In fact, bacalao has become one of the foods I dream of — rich, mild, and subtly sweet filets draped over the requisite bread points, vehicles, boats, or whatever you choose to call the mechanism created to deliver these tender morsels to our mouths.

Mercado de la Paz

After breakfast, M. and I crossed the street to Mercado de la Paz, a Salamanca institution established in 1882. We took our time drifting about. I was impressed by M.’s knowledge. She knew all about the beef (recognizing a hanging slab of Wagyu by sight, for example), the cured meats, the huge seafood egg sacs (the likes of which I had in Tunisia), the delicate infant lamb ribs and legs (which gave us both a pang), and the glorious array of French and Spanish cheeses.

With M.’s guidance and recommendations, I bought two kinds of raw cow’s milk cheese and one diminutive knuckle of goat’s at La Boulette, a mouth-watering emporium within the market. We took our time there, admiring the more than 300 cheeses, vast selection of foie gras and pates, all levels of Iberian jamon of course, and several kinds of roe and caviar… pretty heady stuff! In another part of the market, I bought three kinds of saffron for my dear Iranian friend S., back home. And some thick-cut smoked salmon. I should have had M. take me into her favorite wine shop for a lesson. I have a feeling she will know a lot. I’ll do so next time and report back.

Specifically, I selected Crottin de Chavignol, a sturdy, tiny goat cheese from the Loire valley. Oozy Tomme de Vache au Lait Cru, a pungent, bloomy-rind cheese like Camembert. Made from cow’s milk, this cheese is from Romandy (French-speaking Switzerland), which I learned from this great 2012 Wordpress blog review.

Author Sue Style quotes esteemed French food writer Jean-Pierre Coffe. When offered a taste, he exclaimed, Un vrai fromage qui sent la ferme! (Jeez, that’s good! A real cheese that tastes and smells of the farm!)

And, it’s true. Of the farm it smells indeed, immediately reminding me of my dear Dad, for whom no cheese could be too smelly. The smelly ones are the best, he’d gush. And finally, M. led me to a Spanish cheese called Arzúa-Ulloa from Galicia, in Spain’s northwest corner.

I’m so excited to find Sue Style’s wonderful blog. So happy people like this are on the planet with us.

Except, she’s not. Tears actually came to my eyes when I discovered this. How many wonderful people doing wonderful work are there out there who’s light is soon to be extinguished? Jean-Pierre Coffe is also gone.

Who I have yet to, and will never, discover? I’m glad to know you were here, Sue, and you too, Jean-Pierre. Sue, I will read your blog. So cool that these blogs remain as memorials to these wonderful humans, like little time capsules. Look what Sue posted on Instagram saluting the “miraculous little seed bomb (aka tomatillo).” Jean-Pierre, I will learn about your work too.

M. sweetly bought me two huge, graceful, purple, and perfectly ripe figs with picturesque white cracks down their sides, and a yellow granadilla, a sweet, mild, and delicate passion fruit relative.

She handed the granadilla to me right there in the market and said, You can eat it now. Just poke your thumb in.

I did as instructed.

Now, pull, she said.

I did, to reveal a sludge of grey and black seeds.

Now, slurp, she said.

I obeyed.

The flesh was sweet but not sticky. Juicy and refreshing, each seed a little, self-contained flavor bomb. I’m a fan.

FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup has been going down, as many of you know, and I’m hooked. I’ve watched almost every game being shown on Spain’s RTVE channel, which include Spain’s games of course and then a somewhat random selection.

For the first Spain game against Cape Verde Islands, I planned an outing for four of us 50+ expat ladies at a nearby sports bar. It was a great game to see, as Vozinha, the heroic 40-year-old goalie who’s nickname means “Granny” (referencing his age), held off Spain almost single-handedly. The final score was 0 - 0, a terrible showing for Spain, and Vozinha became an overnight sensation. He has a sweet, humble expression, and I couldn’t be happier about the outcome. (I tend to root for the underdog in every case.)

Thoughts of home

I depart Spain in just over a month. I have mixed feelings, but in my heart of hearts, crazy or not, I’m excited. I’m excited to be going home.

I read Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary in two days and then watched the film seconds after turning the final page. That story is about going home too. Look at Ryland Grace (played by Ryan Gosling in the film). He was lost in deep space… Can you imagine how badly he wanted to come home?

Home is home, as I’ve said before.

Yes, I’m nervous. I cannot go home and start bitching, OMG, in Europe, it’s so clean! In Spain, it’s so safe! Cheap! Beautiful! Humane! Elegant! Fun! Vibrant! Fair! Lovely, relaxed!

That will not fly. Not with my friends, not with my kids, and I don’t think I can even bear myself if I do that. So, that behavior is off the table. What is my strategy then when I get home, and encounter public transit that is expensive, filthy, and unsafe? When gas and food prices are frightening, when I have to watch my back again, and the rest of it?

I do have one. A strategy, that is. My strategy is the following: Be grateful. Cultivate gratitude. Be grateful that I have a home and that I know where it is. That I have dear friends and a community I love. That I have personal history there, a stake there. That I was born in San Francisco, raised in Piedmont, and raised my own family in Oakland. Be grateful for my film club. For the wild, incomparable hills of Oakland, full of bobcat, fox, and even mountain lion, as well as sagebrush, bay, oak, native pine, madrone, manzanita, monkey flower, spicebush, eucalyptus, wild rose, and of course soaring, grandiose redwoods that turn our forests into cathedrals.

Be grateful for the diversity of the Bay Area. I’m super excited to check out all manner of ethnic (and hopefully somewhat affordable) bites, including, for example, Filipino sensation Tita Becca’s. I can’t wait to return to the Antioch Flea Market, where I once had a cup of exquisite charred and seasoned elotes that I still dream of. I want to understand Korean food better and thought I should visit GaRam here in Madrid. But, wait. Check it out: Yuyu Za Zang in Oakland is — according to Google — $10 - 20 while GaRam around the corner from my Madrid flat is 20-30 Euros. I finally found something LESS expensive at home. That is genuinely exciting. GRATEFUL.

I’m grateful, so grateful, to soon be home, where I don’t have to think twice about speaking English. I’m happy and grateful to soon be in my son’s flat and hope to never have a landlady again — especially not a mean Spanish one — in my lifetime. I’m grateful, as I’ve written before, to even have a home to return to, to know what home is. I’ve met a lot of foreigners in Madrid who don’t have a home to return to, or can’t. They’ve sold everything, or they’ve moved so many times that the word home doesn’t have the same resonance as it does for me. I have a home, I know where it is, and I aim to get back to it before it doesn’t recognize me.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that I won’t leave again. But, I don’t think I will any longer make lofty statements about “retiring in Spain” (or wherever). With blythe pronouncements like that, I clearly failed to understand how it would feel to abandon all and everyone that I know in an attempt to rebuild a life… at 58. Far easier to do that important work of leaving codependence behind and stop trying to outrun my discomfort.

My hunch is that most of us so-called “expats” have no intention of growing old(er) and dying in these far-flung outposts. Like Ryland Grace, I want to go home. Of course, at the end of the book and movie, he’s not home. He doesn’t end up back home. In fact, he’s on Rocky’s planet Erid, teaching science to young Eridians. In Grace’s case, he kind of can’t return home. I mean, he could, but due to physics and its time-bending properties, he’d be a generation younger than his friends and family upon arrival. Can you think of anything more disorienting?

Luckily, I will be only nine months older than when I left last December, and my friends and loved ones will also be only nine months older. I’ll therefore recognize everyone, they should be able to recognize me, and for that I’m grateful.

I wrote this last weekend, during the recent heat wave in Madrid, which appears to have broken today. The temperature reached 102.2 F. on the hottest day.

It’s 95 degrees Fahrenheit out, at 5:53 p.m. here in Madrid, and I feel so happy and excited, all cooped up as if it’s a snow day. I’m in my flat, protected by my splendid air conditioner. A short time ago, I was seized by what they call a wild hare. I had the notion I HAD to go out. I just had to walk to my nearest mercado (called Mostenses) before they closed at 7 p.m., before returning for the Paises Bajos - Suecia (Netherlands - Sweden) FIFA World Cup Game.

I spent the entire day ensconced in my flat taking care of myself.

I began my day at 7:30 a.m. — a bit early considering how late I was up, but heck. I did the unmentionable and picked up the phone that was in bed with me (terrible hygiene). But this time, instead of reading the New York Times from cover-to-cover (sic) for the first of 30 times in the day, I landed on a delightful Substack post that took me in all manner of musical directions, including this site, where I discovered super-talented Belarusian band, Soyuz. I went down all kinds of tunnels on YouTube and Spotify, looking everybody up and creating playlists, all while flat on my back. Great fun.

I made a beautiful breakfast of roasted eggplant, red bell pepper, and Jimmy Nardello peppers, two gently-fried eggs, and a piece of poppy seed bread from the bakery across the street, sliced and frozen for convenience. I relished a perfect cup of coffee made in my funky, semi-broken, single-serving moka pot with beans from Federal, the popular cafe a two-minute walk away from me in Plaza de las Comendadoras.

So, yeah. Bad device habits, but in this rare case they pointed my day in a positive direction.

During breakfast, and then systematically for the next six hours, I sampled all of the music I’d collected, including several side trails. I texted with my sister K. who’s always had great taste in music. She reminded me of some of her favorites, including You are the Everything, an R.E.M. song I’d forgotten about. And wow, she’s right. What lyrics. K. told me she’s played it at every one of her cat’s funerals (and too many have died, she said).

As evening drew near, I got the bee into my bonnet that I simply had to go out. I leapt into the shower, got dressed, slipped on some shoes (I still don’t own any sandals), and was about to don my cap and sunglasses when I decided — just for yuks — to check the temperature and learned it’s 95 degrees out there. I laughed and said, out loud, Oh hell no, you’re not going out there. And then I affected a mafioso accent and said “Fuhgeddaboudit,” just like my dear cousin Rick occasionally likes to do.

Then, I kicked off my shoes with glee, put on Coltrane’s For Ernie (I tried Glenn Gould’s Bach Partitas, but they made me nervous. Coltrane’s dulcet tones are a better choice, coursing through the room and now my bloodstream [sure, why not, the breath feeds the blood, and I’m able to take longer breaths with Coltrane than I could with Gould, much longer].)

So, no, I’m not going out. Which means I’m doing a mental inventory. I’m getting low on provisions, but that’s making me laugh too. I like to see what I can make when I have “nothing” in the fridge, or anywhere else.

I’m fine. I have yogurt, eggs, the vegetables I roasted this morning, a small hunk of hard, white goat cheese, a can of tuna, a jar of dried beans, and the aromatics I need for those beans (carrots, thyme, celery, parsley, cumin…). I have yogurt. I have one lemon. I have brown rice, jam, marmelade, a little butter. I have one sweet potato and a head of very fine, purple-tinged garlic. I have tea, honey, coffee, and milk. I have two cans of Estrella Galicia beer and a third of a bottle of Ribera del Duero (2024).

I don’t have meat, cookies, or anything particularly… unctuous. I wanted to go to the market for a treat of some kind. But I do have flour, sugar, eggs, and olive oil. I bet I can make an olive oil-rosemary cake in short order. I even have rosemary getting singed (though I water it twice a day) in a pot on the window sill.

Yes, I retreated. I’m not going out today at all, and I’m embracing it. I feel like I’m playing hooky. I feel like I have a secret. I feel happy, excited, and… that rare thing… good.

Why?

Music certainly helps. Sometimes, often, in fact, I forget how much I love music, how important it is. Sometimes it feels like a luxury I can’t afford. Or something like that. Silly, I know.

I feel better because I’m finally facing my codependency issues. I’m finally giving myself permission to feel better. I feel like I’ve gotten out of jail. Or like I can get out… I can discern a faint path. And that path is lined with The Work.

My therapist L. said — God, three years ago now? — that I would have to work hard. He asked, Was I willing to work hard?

Not particularly, I’m afraid. It was more comfortable to suffer. My God, I’m used to it, I’m good at it, and heck, I deserve it. Right? I’m Irish, I’m guilty, I must be the cause of this or that disaster or malady. It must be my fault. Whatever it is. My mother was the same. My father used to say, Your mother thinks she caused the Challenger disaster. And it’s true that she cried the entire week from the white brocade couch, watching the shuttle fall repeatedly out of the sky, drunk as a skunk.

Codependence is a habit of thinking and being in the world. It’s a victim thing, and I don’t want to carry it around any more. It’s too heavy. It’s pulling me down. It’s harming me and people I love.

It’s so much more than just the negative world view or the self-flagellation or the victim complex (and it’s all of that). It’s not just learning how to let go (again and again) of all of that garbage.

It’s also about learning extremely different and foreign new ways of being in the world. New ways of talking to myself, catching myself. Catching the thoughts. “Catch it, check it, change it,” says L.

Indeed.

Usually, I’m well down the block or on the other side of the neighborhood of my mind before I realize what’s going on. I have to catch the runaway train of abusive self-talk much faster than that.

I’m watching the world cup game now. It’s halftime.

My favorite word in Spanish is Barbaro. Just hearing that word uttered is almost enough to make the games worthwhile for me. I just love hearing it roll off the sportscasters’ tongues! Barbaro!, they cry. They relish the feeling, you can tell. Try it. It really is fun to say. (You have to use Spanish accent, however. Look it up!)

Yes, I’ve lost a lot of time with my recovery work, my healing, but I can’t worry about that. My task now is to use the time I have left as wisely as possible. Can I do that? It remains to be seen.

It’s not easy, this stuff.

What’s really hard though, and still puzzles me, is the Building of the Self.

According to Melody Beattie, the codependency guru who died a couple of years ago, since codependents grew up in environments where their own feelings, needs, and perceptions were ignored they adapted and learned to read the room instead of reading themselves.

As a result, codependents are exquisitely attuned to other people’s needs, moods, and states. In a home marked by addiction and chaos, this skill is adaptive — a survival strategy. The problem is, the child in this environment can’t (or don’t) develop their own preferences, desires, feelings, and sense of who they are.

Beattie describes this as living from the outside in. Codependents look outward to figure out how they feel, what they think, and what they should do. Other people and their opinions become their emotional regulation system.

This rings true for me. Often in my life, I have found I simply don’t know what I want, or feel. My “self” is absent, or very hard to find. There’s a kind of blankness or emptiness in the center. It’s disorienting and frightening. Focusing on other people's needs provides relief and a sense of purpose.

So, the real work, the hard work, is building the self.

That means learning to tolerate our own feelings. Instead of managing or trying to fix them, we’re to feel them and let them pass. Sitting with a feeling without acting on it is apparently how a person develops an interior life. (Who knew?)

According to Beattie, codependents also “outsource” their self-worth. They’re essentially running a continuous approval-seeking operation. The opinion of whoever is in the room becomes the verdict on their worth. Building a self, therefore, means developing a stable internal environment that other people’s reactions can’t topple.

Finally, codependents must learn how to set boundaries, as the natural consequence of having a self with its own values, limits, and needs. However, since one can’t have boundaries without a self, you first need to develop a stronger sense of self. Boundaries emerge from there.

For those of us who have built an identity around being needed or as the one who holds it all together, the prospect of a separate self is not just unfamiliar, it’s actively threatening. If you’re not the caretaker, who are you?

So, yes. Staying home all day to avoid the heat, and feeling like it’s a play day, practicing yoga, breathing intentionally, listening to heaps of great music, preparing nourishing food, drinking tea, and yes, enjoying a beer with my FIFA World Cup game are all ways of caring for, honoring, and enjoying myself.

It feels illicit, contraband — taking up space for yourself, choosing something just because I want it. It feels like I’m getting away with something or doing something wrong.

The hope is, gradually my nervous system will learn that nothing bad happens when I center myself. The world won’t collapse when I turn inward and focus on what I want. I don’t have to go through life feeling anxious, guilty, miserable, and deprived. I can choose to feel good, to enjoy each day, to relax, to have fun. I’m working on learning to have fun. L. said the work will be hard. I’m going to work as hard at learning to relax and trust, to have fun, rely on myself, and step into my power. At least as hard as I did on feeling miserable.

So, yes, learning to enjoy myself fully, without qualms, guilt, or shame. Adopting an open-hearted, trusting approach to life. As my yoga teacher says, “Practice believing everything will work out.” Of course, philosophically, it will. The days will continue to accrue, and then death will come. And all the worry, fear, shame, and doubt will have been for nought. Why not embrace life, warts and all? Stop shying away, waiting for the other shoe to drop?

That’s my mission in recovery.

We had lunch at her favorite taberna. We sat outside beneath said leafy trees. The lean, wiry, aged, blonde waitress took our order. We went with what we were so happy with last time: the perfect Caprese salad with a genuine, fresh burrata (not the waxy, pretend-burrata), sprinkled with a tasty and decorative black salt and the Gambas al Ajillo, aka Garlic Shrimp, a generous portion of small, fat prawns swimming in olive oil, with heaps of sliced garlic, some chili pepper, and a dash of smoked paprika, which we ate on slices of fresh baguette. I had Albariño; she had Ribera, and we settled in. As usual with us, the hours flew.

I attempted to tell her more about my process, why I’m leaving Spain, what my thinking is, what’s working here, what isn’t… in truth there’s very little that’s not working, but you wouldn’t know that from my complainy-pants, homesick post of a few weeks ago titled Why I’m Leaving Spain (Wait, Am I Leaving Spain?).

This week, I had another chance to go sideways, reverse things, what have you. I met a new friend. She has a second bedroom available in her lovely flat in Lavapies, a neighborhood I like very much, where I stayed on Calle de la Magdalena in December, when I first arrived. T. said she thought we’d get along and offered me the large, balconied bedroom with the Mondrian ceiling lamp, own air conditioner, and huge closet for a very good price. It was tempting, I tell you. I thought about it for two days.

I thought, I can just move there, bring my Dutch oven, my valuable down comforter, my kilim, and my winter clothes, pay her, and have a pied-à-terre in Madrid AND go home, visit friends, hang out, see how I feel, and then just return to Madrid in October. It seemed compelling.

But, then I remembered taxes. Returning before the end of the year puts me at more than 183 days in the country which means legally I need to register to pay taxes. I’m just not ready to do that. I declined T.’s kind invitation, and I’m back on track to leave with no real plan to return to Madrid, not at the moment anyway.

Wouldn’t you know it (and you would, because you also are human and know how crazy humans can be), once I “decided” I was going home, I fell right back in love with Madrid. It’s been just delightful sauntering around the city with all the other saunterers. No one is afraid here. No one will be attacked. The Metro is delightful: clean, efficient, safe, frequent, affordable, and super well-connected. You can get anywhere in the blink of an eye with no hassle for cheap. It’s an incredible experience to feel this gentle convivial energy all the time. We are all in this together. It’s not like we’re beaming at each other or carrying on in conversations, but there’s this gentle trust in the general populace. No one feels alarmed, nervous, or threatened. We’re not afraid of each other.

It’s quite freeing.

But, as I said, it is HOT. That’s one of the things I said to K. over lunch today. I’m looking forward to not being in Madrid in August when it’s an oven, to in fact being first in Ontario, Canada, at my friend’s cabin and then back in Oakland as of August 15th, where we have our natural thermostat: the luxurious, romantic, dependable fog that rolls in and over the Golden Gate every evening and burns off by mid-day every day, reliably and regularly cooling everything down.

That’s not the only thing I’m looking forward to. I’m excited to see my friends, to be near my kids, to be surrounded by English and not have to struggle with language, to know the ropes. I’m excited for the library and for used book stores. Most of all, however, I’m excited and determined to avail myself of all the Bay Area has to offer. I want to hike the Oakland hills daily, sit by the bay, visit the ocean, seek out community events, take deep breaths of sea air, find a great job (one of the primary reasons I’m returning), and stay open — sense what’s possible and available there.

I want to be home to vote in the midterms. I want to be there for the party.

I’m looking forward to staying in my son’s flat. I must say after 30 years of owning my own home, having a landlord is not my most favorite thing in the world, and I keep hearing Spanish landlords are notorious for “keeping your deposit,” which would be devastating for me since mine nastily insisted upon a triple deposit.

K. has a different story. When I said, Most of all I don’t want to grow old and die here, she said, Oh, I’m dying here. But then, I have a kid here.

She does. Her daughter moved to Spain some years ago, before her, and coaxed her mom to come. For K., it’s heaven here. She feels like the cat’s meow. She worked in the New York City public schools for years, grew up and raised a family in Queens, has a small pension, and now can live in one of the toniest neighborhoods in Madrid. She has a small, but sweet flat on a safe, clean, tree-lined street (with a very handsome portero [doorman], I must say). Her daughter lives nearby. Her pension affords her a comfortable life here. She can travel, for example, and visited Czech Republic recently and is planning a trip to Cadiz in September.

But, then, she is not taxed here because she is a public servant. Another friend here worked for the U. S. government her whole life. Her pension isn’t taxed either. Pensions aren’t taxed here, in fact. My retirement account would be, however. So would any earnings, and the income from my property. And Spanish taxes are HIGH. That’s why and how everything is so lovely here. Old people have attendants. The streets are safe. There are (almost) no homeless folks. There is no crime to speak of. The streets are clean. The metro is… well, you know. I’m repeating myself now.

I’m reading Melody Beattie again. She wrote Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself. My son gave me a copy of this book three years ago. I read it, and even saw myself in its pages — how could I have not. But, did I do anything about it? When I started therapy with L., the first thing he honed in on was codependency. He said, “You’re going to have to work hard.” Did I work hard? Not sure.

Until now, and even now, I struggle with even defining the problem. It’s murky, this codependency thing. It’s hard to glimpse, like trying to see between your own shoulder blades. It’s right there, but impossible to capture or discern.

The gist of the books — that we are powerless to change anyone but ourselves, and that caring for the self is where healing begins — is finally starting to settle into me… to make sense in a visceral way. Last night, I began The Language of Letting Go, a book of 365 daily meditations on healing from codependency and learning how to care for oneself. It’s full of revelations. For example, Beattie says, You can trust yourself. You do know what you need. You do know what to do. You do have intuition, and it is reliable, meaningful, important, and deserves to be heard and attended to.

This was a revelation.

I told K. this at lunch. I said, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m all over the place.

I say that a lot. But, I might reframe that.

And she did for me. No, it makes perfect sense, she said. You still have a home there. You have kids there. You’re trying to figure out if this will really work for you. It’s a huge decision. Of course you need to go back and see how it feels.

I can’t, she continued. I sold my house. My daughter is here. I’m never going back. I’m dying here. I mean, not here, here, not in the apartment necessarily, but in Spain.

I said, Yes… I can’t imagine growing old and dying here. I’m not connected to the culture. This is not my home, it’s not where I have roots. It’s not where I want to die and be buried.

Another American friend I met the other night (for the first Spain world cup game) said, simply, Oh yeah, I’m dying here. In fact, I’ve already visited a couple of cemeteries. I’m a planner that way.

She shocked me a bit, but I also had a peculiar admiration for her. She was so grounded and staunch in her statements. So committed.

Commitment. That’s a hard one for me. I waffle and vacillate and make myself and everyone else crazy, second-guessing any and all decisions. When I’m really nervous, I even become near-frozen with fear about something as silly as salting a dish as it’s cooking in front of someone else. I become so sure I’m fucking up that I fuck up, right there on the spot. It’s happened many times. It’s really rather severe. It’d be funny if it weren’t so painful.

I need to heal. I need to stop this.

I’m happy to report that I’m doing so much better than I was a few months ago. I’m practicing yoga, meditating, and doing breathwork, and it’s helping enormously. I’m allowing myself at least sometimes to trust the universe, trust the process, trust that things will work out. I’m learning to let go of fear and embrace joy, peace, and beauty. I’m paying attention to what I want and need, and counting myself in. Here’s an affirmation in the Beattie book that caught my eye: “Help me… to let go of my need to be victimized. Help me, appropriately and with confidence, to stand up for myself.”

Beattie says that codependents don't trust themselves, don't trust their feelings, don't trust their decisions, and don't trust other people — yet often try to trust untrustworthy people anyway. This rings true.

K. will miss me, she said. And I will miss her. But, I told her there’s a decent chance I’ll be back. I’m not running away, letting myself down, or letting fear overtake me. My decision to not sign up to pay taxes in Spain yet is legitimate and solid. Going home to see if I can overlook the problems of the dying empire and enjoy life in the Bay Area is not a silly endeavor. Looking for a job is wise and responsible. Not having to struggle in Spanish is appealing. And libraries! Checking out 10, 20, or even 30 library books in English sounds like heaven on earth.

And maybe, just maybe, there’s something for me to do there. I’m thinking about community. I’m thinking about a U.S. that’s limping and compromised. I’m thinking about a refugee and immigrant community that’s terrified, and young people feeling shut out. I’m thinking there might be something important, compelling, and meaningful to do there.

I don’t know.

Yesterday, I had exactly six weeks to go before flying out of Madrid, back to North America. I’ve spent eight glorious months here, made some friends, and learned about myself, my needs, my fears, hopes, and sorrows. I’ve learned I’m possibly more of a homebody than I realized, and I feel grateful to have a home. I’ve learned what my EU passport grants me (a lot), and that home is still home, even when, maybe especially when, it’s rife with problems, troubles, filth, crime, and confusion. It’s also a beautiful place. It’s home.

Gordon. My father’s name. I immediately warmed to him. “Scottish name,” he said. Rugged, bald, blue- (and slightly bug-) eyed, and handsome in his own way, Gordon fit the manly-man trope, I suppose. He was insanely proud to be attending the FIFA World Cup game, Scotland versus Haiti on June 13, which… is today! So, good old Gordon is there now, in his tartan. He said he thought carefully about how to bring the idea to “the wife” (whom he clearly adores) and was delighted when she said yes.

Shortly after we’d bid our goodbyes, several white-faced Korean flight attendants sashayed by, flanked by a phalanx of handsome Korean pilots. The ladies wore turquoise skirts and stiff angular ties that poked dramatically from their upswept hairdos. It was quite a sight and reminded me of Leonardo DiCaprio doing the same in that iconic scene in Catch Me If You Can.

On the plane, an older male flight attendant with narrow shoulders, haggard eyes, and a beauty mark on his right cheekbone demonstrated how to blow into our life vests in the event we landed in the sea alive. An elegant woman across the aisle with shoulder-length white hair swept sleekly into a large tortoiseshell barrette wore amber earrings and a matching necklace. A backpack with a red-and-white keffiyeh strapped to it and a “Save Palestine” sticker slapped on its side was visible in the open overhead bin.

Although it was only an hour and fifteen minutes to Tunis, the crew served dinner, which I appreciated. We had couscous with chicken, a tuna-cucumber-tomato salad, a bread roll with foil-wrapped cream cheese, a square of three-layer sponge cake, and coffee. Suddenly everyone around me was speaking Arabic or French. No more Spanish. Now I was “Madame,” not “Señora.” We passed over an island, and then the coastline. Dusk gathered.

L. lives in Carthage and had sent a taxi to meet me, which was kind. The driver was at the exit with my name on a cardboard sign. When he couldn’t find the address, I called my host. She answered with an exasperated sigh and said, “I’m in my pajamas.” She grew more annoyed when I didn’t have Tunisian dinars to pay the driver. I reminded her that she’d specifically asked me not to keep the driver waiting at the airport.

We talked before bed and found some affinities. We’re both from the Bay Area, for one thing. The apartment was spacious, if a little grimy. She made me a coffee with cardamom seeds extracted from a pod she crushed, whole seeds I munched after finishing my cup, with a pleasantly minty effect. All things considered, the arrival had gone smoothly. I’d even managed to smuggle in the bag of expensive cheeses she’d requested from Madrid.

I was roused the next morning by a cacophony of birdsong. I activated my Merlin Bird ID app and discovered I was hearing the following eighteen species: Western House Martin, European Serin, Eurasian Wren, Eurasian Collared Dove, House Sparrow, Eurasian Blackbird, Mistle Thrush, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Sardinian Warbler, Black Redstart, Laughing Dove, Yellow-Legged Gull, Barn Swallow, Common Swift, Song Thrush, European Greenfinch, Common Bulbul, and Spanish Sparrow. From my bedroom window, a strip of the turquoise Gulf of Tunis beckoned, with a mountain silhouetted on the horizon.

I met my guide Aladdin (yes, that’s his real name) in Tunis at ten that morning, after a modest omelette served with a tomato and cucumber salad and a cup of coffee at a café alongside the graceful, French-built municipal theater. We were a group of about nine. Aladdin was a handsome, energetic man in his thirties, getting married the following week. He told us that his full-time job is on a cruise ship. As the first-born son, he said, it’s his responsibility to care for his parents and pay for his younger brother’s wedding (!). As a result, all first-born sons have two jobs in Tunisia.

From the theater we walked down what Aladdin called Tunis’ Champs-Élysées — Avenue Habib Bourguiba — to the French Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul. Paul was captured by Barbary pirates and sold into slavery in Tunis in 1605, where he remained for two years before escaping back to Europe. We entered from the back, as the impressive front was gated off with two manned army tanks parked in the median. Built in 1893, the church contains one of the oldest organs on the African continent. The interior was silent, dusty, and moribund. I was surprised by the Moorish influences and the large number of Arabic inscriptions on tablets affixed to the wall.

From there we entered the Tunis medina via a narrow pedestrian channel. Immediately, we were plunged into another world, a covered bazaar of serpentine lanes; pastel, brass-studded doors; and intricate, carved mashrabiya, which are traditional latticework wooden screens found across the Middle East and North Africa. Artisans and purveyors of all kinds were visible in their tiny workshops and storefronts.

The medina is a vibrant, living community, not a tourist hub, and the lack of crowds or pestering fostered a gentle atmosphere. The beautiful Arabic calligraphy everywhere was thrilling. We visited an old Koranic school called Madrassa Slimania and a four-story warren of a café called Du Souk that eventually opened out to a stunning rooftop garden of tile, painted arches, flowers, and little alcoves in which to sip your sweet Tunisian coffee.

Everywhere, I saw beautiful old things made of wood, metal, and ceramic, not ubiquitous plastic. We lingered in the courtyard of the public Khaldounia Library, with its classic black-and-white-striped arches. It was founded in 1896 as the first modern school in Tunisia — free, public, and secular. We visited an obligatory essential oil workshop (where I dutifully made a purchase), then the gold market and Kasbah Square, distinguished by one of the oldest mosques in Tunis, built in the 1230s. We explored Sidi Ben Arous, one of the medina’s great aristocratic streets, lined by palaces from the 16th to 19th centuries. We also visited Ez-Zitouna in the center of the medina, one the oldest mosques in the world, founded around 689 AD and rebuilt in the 9th century.

I had pulpo for lunch and felt like a 1950s diplomat at Dar El Jeld, a rooftop restaurant with a spellbinding view of the city unfolding over rolling hills around us. A persistent gentle breeze fluttered the bouganvilla, palms, and umbrellas. After bidding Aladdin and the rest of the group farewell, I promptly got lost in the medina, wound up near a bus station, and found myself agape, astonished by block after block of romantic, crumbling, French buildings. It felt like what I’ve heard Cuba to be, an elegant city lost to the ravages of time. It also reminded me of Hanoi in the early 1990s.

I took pictures until a woman with two children beckoned from the passenger seat of a car and mimed that my phone could get snatched in that particular part of town. The kids bounced up and down in the back seat as they chattered at me, their eyes shining with delight.

Back in Carthage, I walked along the waterfront through a largely undeveloped neighborhood of more Belle Époque mansions, some falling apart and abandoned, some spiffed up, a school or two, a police station, and some government buildings. A few people were swimming in the silky, teal-blue sea.

The following day, L. and I visited Ennejma Ezzahra (Arabic for Star of Venus), also known as the Baron d’Erlanger Palace, in Sidi Bou Saïd. We attended a lecture by L.’s friend Winky, an energetic, older British woman who lives in Tunis half of every year.

Winky spoke about the goings-on during WWII at the early-twentieth-century Moorish palace, which was occupied first by German military forces and then by Allied (American) troops billeted there. She also told us about a pristine American Cemetery in nearby Carthage, where 2,841 American military dead are buried from the North African Campaign and where 3,725 names are listed on the Wall of the Missing.

We toured the breathtaking palace itself, with its intricate, lace-like, traditional Arabic stucco work, geometric painted ceilings and balconies, marble walls, and an interior fountain of flower-scented water. The estate also sports a dusty closet full of rare Arab sheet music, spectacular sea views, and 12 acres of terraced gardens.

A droll Italian man who had recently retired from the UN accompanied our small tour. He wore a three-piece ecru suit with grey pinstripes decorated with a pocket scarf and a white carnation. He had a decadent, debauched way about him and regaled us with breezy stories about his global adventures, his Congolese wife, and their triplets.

After the lecture, L. took off. I wandered through Sidi Bou Saïd proper, famous for its charming hilltop setting and blue-and-white-painted homes that inspired the likes of Paul Klee, Michel Foucault, and André Gide. I had a coffee and a small plate of Tunisian sweets (my waiter insisted) at Café Midoun, perched high above the street at the top of a steep flight of white-painted steps. With no signage, there was almost no one enjoying the cafe’s airy, sea-view terrace besides me.

A couple passing on the tourist-thronged street below spied me. I waved, and they made their way up, took some photos, and then left without ordering so much as a glass of tea, to the consternation of my waiter. On my way out, I stopped at the bambalouni shop below and avidly scarfed a chewy, puffy, and very tasty doughnut (called a bambalouni) made for me on the spot.

At the bottom of the hill, I caught a taxi to La Marsa, but the driver said the restaurant I requested was closed and proved it with his phone. He suggested another place. He began showing me pictures of food on his phone as the meter climbed (and yes, as he drove). By the time I realized we were no longer headed to La Marsa, we were halfway back to central Tunis. He pulled up in front of a seafood restaurant called Neptune, delivered me inside, and refused to let me pay him. I worked with the young man at the front counter using his translation app, and eventually the youth accompanied me to send the driver away. He wasn’t pleased but let me pay him.

I had a tasty, well-crisped, whole, fried dorado, a finely chopped Tunisian salad of tomato, cucumber, green bell pepper, and white onion, and sparkling water. My waiter clucked, grimaced, and shook his head when I asked about beer. In the corner, the TV portrayed a map of the Strait of Hormuz as talking heads discussed the situation.

After lunch, I wandered along Avenue Habib Bourguiba. A man fell into step beside me. He was friendly, not overbearing, and said he worked at a nearby hotel. He was walking home and could show me a special exhibit closing that day. On our way, Aswan — for that was the man’s name — told me about the sheep every family was preparing to slaughter for the upcoming high holiday. We heard one of them bleating piteously behind a courtyard wall in the medina. He said kids play with the sheep in the days leading up to Eid, and that every family must give one-third of their meat to a poor family — that’s Islam, he said.

He noticed I liked all the cats and told me that a cat once fell asleep on the Prophet Muhammad’s arm as he waited in a courtyard, so the prophet cut off his sleeve rather than disturb it, which is why Muslims feel so tender toward felines. There were tiny kittens and heavily pregnant mothers everywhere, and many bowls of water set out in the narrow passages.

Eventually, and perhaps predictably, I found myself in a carpet shop. I only felt a little manipulated. I bought my son a small Berber runner from the south of the country for what may or may not have been a fair price (I did bargain).

I made my way out of the medina after several wrong turns and walked all the way down Habib Bourguiba to the TGM, the Tunis-Goulette-Marsa train, a rickety old commuter railway connecting central Tunis to Carthage and Sidi Bou Saïd. It cost about $0.30 for a ticket. We swayed from side to side along a causeway over the glistening Lac de Tunis. A horn that sounded like a toy tooted merrily at random intervals. An old, unwell woman of maybe ninety sat across from me. She smiled feebly and somehow managed to convey she was going to the hospital for an operation the following day.

Some twenty-year-old boys befriended me. One asked how old I was and said I looked “little.” Another offered me a bite of his m’lehwi, a flaky Tunisian wrap of tuna, olives, boiled eggs, fried potatoes, salad, and harissa. I should have said yes. (I never did get my m’lehwi.)

On Sunday, L. joined me to visit the Antonine Baths (Thermes d’Antonin) at Carthage. She didn’t want a guide, but I’d read it was essential and sprang for one. Ours was a dignified older gentleman who took us into the maze of what had been the basements where legions of slaves had lived, forced to stoke the furnaces around the clock, “because the fires could never go out.” Surrounded by smoke 24/7, our guide said the slaves had short lives. What's striking about the baths is that we saw just the basement level. These baths were massive, and what remains standing is essentially just the substructure. The full building towered far above where these columns now reach.

From there we caught a cab to the Carthage Tophet, an ancient Phoenician/Punic sacrificial site from the late 7th century BC located in the Salammbô district, named after Gustave Flaubert's 1862 novel Salammbô. Our guide was enraptured as he led us to an assortment of stelae — stone markers carved with the goddess Tanit’s symbols: a circle for her head, a bar representing outstretched arms, a triangle body, a crescent moon, and a sun disc. Our guide said that 30,000 first-born, six-year-old boys were sacrificed at this location to Tanit and her male consort Baal Hammon.

Our knowledgeable guide spoke of the Punic wars, of the great general Hannibal marching 37 war elephants over the Alps to bring the war to Rome’s doorstep, and then of Rome’s revenge, when Carthage was besieged from 149 to 146 BC, burned to the ground, and the earth salted. After that, Vandals, Byzantines, and Arab armies marched through, each leaving their mark. The Ottomans stayed for three centuries. The Spanish attempted a foothold. And then, the French arrived in 1881, supposedly as a “peacekeeping mission,” and of course wound up colonizing the country.

After the tour, L. and I caught a cab to lunch at La Maison des Grillades in La Marsa, where we chose from a cornucopia of seafood. We started with grey mullet eggs. You eat the entire egg sac. The texture is not unlike calamari, and when you bite into it, you can feel millions of little eggs popping. We also had calamari, swordfish, large tender prawns, and… more egg sacs! These were quail egg-sized and my favorite. This extravaganza was served with a spicy green sauce and brik — crispy, deep-fried, triangular pastries filled with egg and tuna. I paid because L. forgot her wallet.

That evening I went for a swim in the silky Tunis Bay, floating on my back in water so salty it buoyed me up with no effort at all.

Unfortunately things deteriorated with my host. Tensions had been rising. I’d mentioned that an Israeli friend had been fighting for years alongside many in the country to topple Netanyahu. L. immediately saw me as a sympathizer. She was also horrified that I had pulpo for lunch in the medina. She cried, Didn’t you see My Octopus Teacher?

On my third night, she said the landlord had been out to the flat three times since my arrival. The kitchen sink had stopped up, and she somehow determined I was the cause (though I wasn’t cooking; she was). Wifi was down two days in a row, apparently because I was using too much data. And then, with some ceremony, she pointed out that I’d been missing some bag inside the rubbish bin with my used tissues and that she was tired of picking them up. Yikes.

I felt patently unwelcome (and a little scared) and took my leave. I caught a cab and checked into the Victoria Hotel in Tunis, right at the French Gate at the entrance to the medina. The Victoria is the former British Embassy. My small room had a soaring, brightly painted, carved, geometric ceiling and a spacious stone balcony. I settled in with a sigh of relief.

The next day, I met my driver Nino, who took me to Dougga (also known as Thugga), a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most magnificent Roman ruins in Africa. After driving about 110 kilometers southwest of Tunis, Nino found a shady spot to nap while I wandered among remarkably intact temples, a theatre, and baths set on a hillside above ancient olive groves and fields of grain. It was blindingly bright and very hot.

My guide was a woman in her forties. I never really saw her eyes. She mumbled as though her jaw were slack, and I had to strain to hear her. She seemed exhausted. At one point she said, apropos of nothing, If things are going wrong in your country, don’t have a revolution. Just adapt. Revolution is worse. I probed a little. She said, Everything was much better and cheaper before 2011. First, we had one party, then we had 50 parties. It was chaos. It’s all mafia now. No one can afford meat.

On the way back, Nino wanted to stop for pizza and ‘fast food.’ I asked if we could get good Tunisian food instead. He took me to a large, empty, pretentious hotel where they served me a fried dorado past its prime. I asked Nino what he thought. He tasted it, agreed, and sent it back. Staff then brought me a stringy chicken. I later realized that by fast food, Nino probably meant M’Lehwi, and I would have gotten to try a street food I was seeking. I was alarmed when he said “pizza” and thought he was trying to appease the western palate. Alas.

That evening, back in central Tunis, I sallied out for dinner. A man sidled up to me. He said, Hello! I’m the cook in your hotel! Don’t you remember me? I peered at him. I wasn’t sure, but didn’t want to be rude. He said he worked half the year in Canada and had relatives in the US. He wore fashionable sunglasses and white tennis shorts. He said he’d show me a great place for dinner, and that I’d ‘thank him in the morning.’ I let him tag along. He got a bit hand-y as we crossed a street. He apologized and said he was protecting me. He kept saying, Thank you for respecting me, which I found odd, especially by the third time.

I stopped in front of a lamb grillade place and said this place is fine, expecting him to get lost. Instead, he accompanied me inside and stood beside me as I pointed to two pieces of lamb shoulder blade for the grill. I sat at a table outside. He came out and said to give him the money, he would pay. 97 dinars, he said. I went inside to talk to the man behind the counter. The creep then cried, 75! 75 dinars! and cast a meaningful glance at the grillmaster. I asked the grillmaster the price. He said 27 dinars. Then the creep began speaking rapidly, sotto voce, Give me money, please, give me money for meat for my children. I said, No. Then, he began crowding me into a corner with his body. I screamed, No! Out! Help!

The place suddenly grew still. The creep turned tail and ran.

The bearded man at the grill then wrote me a message using his translation app: Welcome to Tunisia. I’m sorry about what happened with that bad man. We are not all like that. I assured him I knew that. Hunched over my lamb chops, it took me a while to calm down. I caught the sympathetic eyes of the only other woman in the place through the mirror. We exchanged rueful, knowing glances. The lamb was great, served with a spicy green sauce, a smoky harissa, the ubiquitous Tunisian salad, and puffy, soft pita.

One evening, when I was again lost and going in circles in the medina, I met an incredible young couple. I was trying to find my way out and getting discouraged when I encountered Ons, a pretty, serious, and kind IT student from Hammamet who was waiting for her friend. She said when he arrived, they would help me. Munther, Ons’ enthusiastic history- and food-loving pal, arrived a minute later. Together, we walked all over. They were as lost as I was but determined to help me.

On the way, Munther pointed out various sights, including the tomb of the unknown soldier. When we finally made it out to a neighborhood near my hotel, Munther highlighted various local food spots in Sidi El Béchir including “Uncle Rrabah,” the best place for M’lehwi.

Tuesday I visited the Bardo Museum, when I should have gotten out of Tunis as early as possible. The streets were packed. The fumes and pollution from idling cars and trucks were intense. People scurried around doing last-minute shopping for ‘Big Eid.’ The Bardo was worth seeing for the intricate ancient Roman floor mosaics, but the museum itself was stuffy and poorly organized. Getting out of the city proved to be complicated. I gave up on the louage, a shared minivan taxi (pronounced loo-ahj), and Lotfi, the hotel manager, arranged a private driver to take me to my next destination: Hammamet, Ons’ hometown.

My driver Lazar and I chatted as best we could on the drive to Hammamet. He said I need a husband so that when I wake up in the night coughing, someone is there to bring me water. He’s not wrong. He said if he had a nice brother, he’d introduce me, but his brother is not a good man. He said his dearly loved wife had died 18 months before. He has a new wife now, and he is a lucky man. She is a good wife.

He took me first to the inn I’d found online. It was highly recommended especially for its Tunisian breakfast. But as we drove down a dusty, rutted, and trash-strewn road, Lazar became appalled. He said he wouldn’t let his wife or sister stay there. I thought he had a point.

He called a friend, a travel agent, and found a place called La Méditerranée. At La Méditerranée, a guard looked sharply at Lazar as we came through the gate. The staff at the front desk made me wear a plastic bracelet like in a nightclub before they’d let me see the room, which was utterly soulless. I knew I’d feel terrible there, although they did have direct beach access. I told Lazar I had to think about it and just wanted to pay him for the ride and a little extra for his time. He became flustered and upset. The travel agent already paid, he said. I said, How? Why? I didn’t agree to that. The hotel was able to refund his money, and he left.

I asked the staff what it would cost me paying directly. It wasn’t much less, which made me feel bad. Maybe Lazar really had been trying to help me. But the complex was vast and chilling, tacky while trying to look ‘luxury.’ I wrote Ons, the lovely young woman I’d met in the medina. She recommended El Mouradi. I took a 30-minute taxi there. Unfortunately, it was also too vast and corporate for me, and the metal detector at the door depressed me. You also had to pass a kind of guard outpost to get into the tourist neighborhood, which was full of what appeared to be half-built, abandoned hotel projects.

I sent a message on WhatsApp to my friend R.’s Tunisian contact. She recommended La Résidence, near the Hammamet medina. I got into my third cab of the day to go see the fourth potential hotel.

This was the ticket. La Residence was one-third the cost of the others, modest, pretty, and naturally charming, with spacious, airy rooms; solid, old furniture; and the gentle aura of a prior era (also the lack of outlets of a prior era). In the center was a lovely courtyard garden with a fountain, shade trees, a café, and a trove of singing birds. Across a two-lane road was a beautiful public beach. The proprietress Naima brought me a cookie and a small glass of mint lemonade before showing me the rooms. I chose one overlooking the garden.

That evening, I swam at the beach, a curved bay with an exceptional view of the sandy-rose, ancient, walled medina. The water was warm and buoyant with salt. The muezzin called the evening prayer for a long time from the mosque on a nearby promontory, the old walls glowing in the rays of the sinking sun.

On the morning of Eid, I walked the medina early, before the heat set in. In one of the narrow passages, I passed a man carrying an entire headless sheep over his shoulder, dripping blood and water behind him. Following him came a man carrying the head. Following that man came a third, carrying the knife. I had time to take a photo, but didn’t, out of respect.

A little further on I came upon the sacrificial site itself, still puddled with blood and water, with two small Tunisian ceramic coffee cups balanced on a nearby stoop. As I continued through the alleyways, the air was redolent with the fragrance of lamb and mutton roasting in heady herbs and spices.

Around the next corner was a tourist — a sunburned, heavyset woman in a bikini. She was padding through the medina photographing plants, straight up from the beach, with no thought for where she was or what day it was. I was embarrassed for her, and for the Tunisians who had to behold her.

For lunch, I returned to my hotel, where I had grilled lamb ribs, salad, and frites for lunch on the patio, with a Tunisian beer. In the afternoon, I went for a swim. As I waded in, a man in the water said hello brightly and began advancing toward me. Given some of my recent experiences, I decided to ignore him and moved away quickly.

Later I saw he was an adolescent, and I think more than a bit touched. I watched with sorrow as he made bids for connection up and down the beach with young and old, men and women alike. It was especially painful watching him ask a group of male youths if he could have something to eat with a universal gesture.

That evening, downstairs for dinner in the hotel courtyard, I heard French, Italian, and Arabic spoken all around me. I spoke briefly with an Italian man at a nearby table. When he heard I was from the U.S., he shook his head and said, What a pity. What a pity. Which is what everyone says. Trump is loco. Crazy. Dangerous. It’s not just our heartbreak, what’s happened in the U.S.

The next day I joined a quad tour, of all things. The man who sold it to me, Hussein, said we would visit a Bedouin village. Needless to say, we did not visit a Bedouin village. Still, I liked the young man Thamer who worked with the tourist company. He was gentle, thoughtful, and ambitious. The camel ride afterward was more my speed. I was able to get to know Thamer better as he led me on my camel through lemon and olive groves punctuated by figs, pomegranates, and paddle cactuses as high as houses, full of sunny yellow flowers. Thamer led my camel, whose name was Gecko Gecko, beneath a fruiting mulberry and invited me to feast on the sweet, meaty, white and purple berries. Thamer said there is no work in Tunisia except tourism. He was the second person to say that.

On my last night, I went to Chez Achour, which one Google reviewer called the best restaurant in Tunisia. I was seated in a large courtyard sheltered by ancient eucalyptus trees and fruiting mulberries. My waiter Hamouda was handsome, kind, and solicitous. He said, You are beautiful, your smile is so beautiful. (I’ll take it.) He brought me pita, harissa, a tomato salsa, olives, and a little cup of tender whole prawns, with a bottle of Tunisian olive oil for liberal pouring. He placed a half bottle of Tunisian white wine in an ice bucket alongside my table.

The next course was a finely chopped Tunisian salad of tomato, cucumber, green bell pepper, white onion, spices, and herbs, garnished with half a hard-boiled egg, pickled peppers, olives, and mint sprigs. For my entrée I finally had couscous. Several Tunisians had asked me whether I’d tried it. I chose the version with grouper, which, sadly, was a touch overcooked. I called Hamouda over. He said, That’s just how grouper is and suggested I moisten it with extra sauce. He brought me a dish of ice cream on the house for dessert.

On my last morning, sitting on the patio having breakfast, I watched a young mother in hijab raise her infant daughter to her lips and kiss her. When she sensed me looking, she met my gaze and smiled shyly yet broadly, unable to contain her pride and joy.

I just made another great salad from nothing. I just love to do this. When I think I have nothing to eat, I push myself and often wind up having a really splendid dinner. Tonight, I had the still-good remainder of the giant head of escarole I bought last week. I pulled some pale green leaves from the center and tore those into bite-size pieces, added some sliced cornichons, a sprinkling of French thyme leaves from the plant on my windowsill, two medium-boiled, quartered eggs with custard-y centers, a tomato cut into eighths, and then shook up a jar of olive oil, a little of the pomegranate vinegar I got for my birthday, a little grainy mustard, a little dijon mustard, a little honey, a big, roughly-chopped garlic clove, salt, and pepper, and I dressed my salad.

Yesterday afternoon, I met my friend D. for a glass of wine in Lavapies. It was an awkward time — merienda more than drink-time, and many places were closed between the lunch and aperitif hours. We found a not-very-good (I’m afraid) “Italian” restaurant. I had a rather sweet Lambrusco, and we shared a peaked eggplant dish.

While there, a handsome older man stopped and peered in the window. D. waved him to come in, and… he did! He sallied forth with a full head of hair, a lithe gait, sunglasses, and a trim blazer and proceeded to elegantly flirt with D., asking her to put him in a story and to write “from the heart.” He also said, to his credit, (before D. could invite him to join us), that he needed to go find his wife. Lol. It was fun. It was fun to see D. take a chance, and to see this handsome man respond to her. And to remind us both that gentlemen exist! They’re still out there, out and about! All is not lost!

After our initial drink, as the afternoon light grew more mellow, we made our way back to D.’s where she invited me to get high (!), which we did, and which was so fun. It’s rare for me, and fun when I’m invited. Then, we took off to find some San Isidro festivities. Just a few blocks away, we stumbled upon a gathering before the massive Royal Collegiate Church of San Isidro where worshippers were emerging from the open doors carrying imágenes (also called tallas)—ancient and ornate carved wooden figures of Mary and San Isidro himself.

Shortly before this, Mary was paraded by. There was an incredible call-and-response from the priests to the crowd and back. The evening air was fragrant with incense, and then bells began tolling magnificently from the twin bell towers above us. Looking up, I saw them swinging wildly, catching the a lip of sun on their edges as the sound echoed and bounced impressively up and down the street.

All around us were people dressed up for San Isidro. Woman wearing red and white carnations in their hair and traditional polka-dot dresses and fringe shawls.

From there, we headed to barrio La Latina, where we stopped at Taberna La Concha for tapas and una copa de Albariño. My tostada bacalao ahumada with two kinds of caviar was extraordinary. I can’t stop thinking about it and will be back in short order.

The place was packed with revelers, standing room-only, as it’s been every time I’ve visited, with a few customers in traditional dress. As D. was placing our order at the bar, I managed to snag a corner table with two bar stools.

From there, we made our way further down Cava Baja, a street famous for their many tapas joints, to Lamiak, a favorite of both of ours. After a few minutes’ wait, we were given a smidge of railing along a wall with with stools, where I had a Mencia and sliced pulpo tapa, and D. opted for the mini-lasagne. This is the place I discovered when I first arrived in December and returned to several times. They’re perfectionists who do a bang-up job.

From there, we meandered to the palace. D. wanted to show me a bridge above the river at sunset. We arrived just in time for sunset and took pictures from the back patio between the palace and the cathedral.

It was perfect afternoon and evening. We walked back to D.’s. I caught the Metro back to my flat from the station right at her doorstep (there seems to be a Metro station at just about everyone’s doorstep).

When I got home, I thought, Wait, why am I leaving again?

When I woke up, I called Jorge, the guy I’d talked to three weeks ago about a flat he’s renting for considerably less than the one I’m in now. It’s in a great area too: Las Letras. The flat itself is quirky and bohemian, maybe a bit too much so, but what do I expect? If I want to pay much less, I have to accept that. I learned the flat is still available, which surprised me. And, he reduced the rent by 100 Euros on the phone.

I got dressed and met D. at Plaza Mayor to take in more San Isidro festivities. We had a coffee, and I confessed I’m a total spaz in case she hadn’t already gathered that. She smiled at the use of a word she hadn’t heard in years (and didn’t deny my usage). I said, Maybe I should just get out of my pricey flat and rent a more affordable one… I mentioned I had called Jorge.

D., kindly, said, Go home, and see how you feel. The subtext, or what I heard as the subtext, was, You made a decision. See it through. If you want to return, you can (but you don’t need to jump to another apartment now).

She has wisdom.

I doubt and second-guess every decision I made, and it makes me (and others) suffer.

After our coffee, we watched traditional Spanish dance on the stage set up in the middle of Plaza Mayor as the mid-morning sun warmed our shoulders.

When D. took off to meet another friend in the afternoon, I peeled away from Plaza Mayor and set off for a folkloric museum to see if I could find some gigantes — the giant puppets paraded through the streets I’d seen in photos. I missed them there, in a neighborhood on the edge of Lavapies, but found lots of antique stores to peek into.

I heard the gigantes were on their way to Puerta del Sol and made my way in that direction. I missed them there too, but as I peered down Calle Mayor, I thought I saw a giant bobbing head. I quickened my pace, and sure enough, there they were. I caught up to them and snapped some photos.

And here, gigantes spinning frenetically to the music of the marching band accompanying their progress:

The incredible thing is, I saw giant puppets like these — but even better, as they were made of papier-mâché and were even more bizarre, unique, and scary — being paraded through side streets of lovely Morelia in Michoacán, Mexico, several years ago. It never occurred to me this tradition might have originated in Spain.

On the way home, I stopped at my favorite lunch spot, El Reloj de Harry & Sally and had a lovely Iberian pork tenderloin asado with sweet potato, a little herb salad, and a glass of mellow ribera (tempranillo). This is the same place I visited with my friend who recently stayed with me. At that time, we got a beautiful cocido served in a cabbage with a full bottle of ribera (that comes with it, whether you want it or not). It was memorable and fun. That’s where my friend said with gravity, “Your time to struggle is over. Now, it’s time to enjoy.”

On that note, I’ll leave you with Yusef Lateef’s Purple Flower, another lovely, moody jazz revelation.

I’m returning home to the Bay Area this summer. Why? When Europe is so much better on so many levels than the U.S.? Let’s cover that ground first.

Everything they say is true. Here in Madrid,

1. It’s SAFE. People stroll. They amble. They meander. Old people are out on the streets every day. With walkers, with attendants, or just sitting alone on a bench absorbing the sun. They don’t seem concerned they will be pushed down subway stairs, robbed, or assaulted. Because they won’t. I still, I’m afraid, walk like I live in Oakland. That is, I still walk fast, very fast, very determined, very linearly. With a don’t-mess-with-me vibe. And, it’s not needed. I don’t need to walk that way anymore.

2. It’s (more) affordable (though not as cheap as I’d been led to believe). Prices are rising with so many foreigners [and so many US citizens] moving in, and the dollar has weakened considerably against the Euro since I began this escapade, and that bites, I tell you. But, still. A glass of Albarino or Verdejo is one Euro more than a glass of sparkling water. Yes. Let that sink in.
   
   When I left Cali, a glass of wine was typically a rough $17. Which is an insult. What kind of gouging is that, anyway? California grows wine. How can even a so-so wine be $17 a glass? In contrast, the wines here that are 3.20 Euros per glass are lovely, lilting, complex, soft. Or the edge is pure mineral and brightness. Not harsh, bitter, like so many wines in California once you dip beneath a certain price point. The wines here all seems to be good. Hands down.

3. It’s beautiful. The narrow streets of central Madrid, the Belle Epoch architecture (and all the other epochs too!), the sherbet-colored buildings, the shiny, black-painted iron balconies, the thousands of adorable cafes and tabernas, the leafy, expansive plazas where people while away hours just chatting, the zillions of fountains, all flowing and splashing merrily. Across the street from my flat is a 16th-century convent with that particular order of nuns still living there. A rose-colored church dome rises above the convent. A very special, rare, small, intricate chapel exists inside. I took a tour one day… it was jaw-dropping. Particular, peculiar, vibrant, alive, unique, ancient—and living, in use.

4. The relaxed pace of life. The chatting is a good indicator of that. Three-hour lunches are the norm — not an exaggeration at all. People seem to have so much to say to each other. It’s charming. It’s a true cafe culture too. People while away their time over coffees, and then in the evening move to taberna for a vermut, a caña, or a glass of wine.

5. Siesta. Let’s not forget siesta. People really do put signs on their shop doors at 2:30 saying they’re out till 5:30. It’s nap time, after all. Siesta. Time for a long lunch with loved ones. Family, friends, what-have-you, and then a little nap, and then a stroll back to work. Then, apparently, they’re open till… 9. I think. I just got a text from the pharmacy that my prescription is ready for pick-up. At 9.

6. Healthcare. My private health insurance is 120 Euros/month, and the care I’ve gotten has been exceptional. So far, I’ve seen a gynecologist, an ENT doctor, and a podiatrist. Every experience has been impressive and exhaustive — the doctor in each case went above and beyond what I’ve become accustomed to in the U.S. I even got a bone density scan from my gynecologist. She insisted. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t do this, she said simply. I would not have been able to get that in the U.S.

7. The food. The food in the markets is commonly of exceptional quality. The medjool dates are just so much better than anything I ever experienced in the U.S., and I’m crazy about dates, so I know. The dates at my local market here are plump, soft, and sweet. The heads of escarole are massive and exceedingly fresh. The huge, tight red bell peppers are an exquisite jewel-tone scarlet and so sweet. I don’t have to worry that the produce has been sprayed with Roundup or any other carcinogen, as they’re all banned here. Ditto for the meat or chicken. I know none of it has been tainted by drugs, growth hormones, or antibiotics of any kind.

8. The people are kind, tolerant, accepting, relaxed. So far. So many U.S. citizens are pouring in at this point that that might change. But so far, I’ve experienced a very relaxed, warm, kind culture. The people I’ve interacted with truly appreciate even the smallest attempt to speak in Spanish and are willing to switch into English at the slightest indication.

Why would I leave?

Why indeed.

I’ll tell you. I need to try to tell you because I need to sort this out for myself too.

1. It’s not home. What does that even mean? At home, I complained a lot. It’s not like this in Europe, I’d say. Yes, I was insufferable. I wasn’t necessarily wrong. But, I forgot about the pull of home. It’s home. That’s all there is to it. Need I say more? I know how things work there. I know how to navigate. It’s familiar. That can be both a curse and a blessing. I was too used to things. I took everything for granted. And I sharply criticized what was wrong. Which was a lot, to be honest. But, still. I wasn’t very charitable. Maybe, when I’m home again, I can shift my perspective and focus on what’s right about Oakland. There is much that is right.

2. It’s more expensive than I expected. Yes, Madrid is more expensive than the articles I read for years led me to believe. Not to fault the articles. When I first began looking into Madrid at least ten years ago, it really was a great time to buy a flat here. Now, it no longer is. Prices are almost the same as California now. Which is sad. I missed that opportunity because I shy away from such things.

3. I’m too far away from my kids, friends, community, and home. This is real and valid. Even if my daughter won’t talk to me at the moment, just being near her geographically is meaningful to me. It might be magical thinking, but I do find myself positing the notion that if I’m nearby, physically, it might help us to re-connect. My oldest friend E. said, Oh, no. Banish the thought. If she knew you thought that, it would drive her away even further. Maybe that’s true. I really don’t know. What if the opposite is true? I just don’t know, have no clue. It’s all a guessing game.

4. I’m not serious about learning Spanish. It’s not that I don’t want to enroll in a great class, get a private tutor, and fling myself headlong into learning Spanish. Of course I do. BUT, I was recently advised that if I want to have any hope of holding onto the family home and maybe being able to pass it to my kids after my demise, I need to work for five more years. Once that became apparent, focusing on Spanish just seemed like the worst sort of dilletante-ism.

5. I’m afraid if I stay away too long, I won’t be able to come back, that it will never feel like home again. We all know this is true. Read any immigrant or migrant tale, and this comes to the fore quickly. Home is home. Look Homeward Angel. You can never go home again. You can never step into the same river twice. All of that. If you leave, and you’re gone too long, you can’t expect to feel the same, or quite right, when you return. Something will be off, will be amiss. You’ll always have each foot in a different place. As much as I like to consider myself a global citizen (and I do like that), I am quite possibly more of a homebody than I realized, and maybe I don’t want to bring that particular curse upon myself.

6. I have a couple of terminally ill friends, and I want to be near them. This is a big one. I do have a couple of terminally ill friends, and the thought of being away as/if they decline is painful. In fact, it makes me crazy. To think I might just be gone as they face the biggest hurdle any of us will ever face, well, it makes me feel like shit. Of course, I’m aware that as we get older, this will happen more and more because, well, I guess the fate for us all is that we will kick off from this earth. As unbelievable as that may seem. But, I want to be home while my friends are still here. I do.

7. I’m too far away from Hawaii, where I will need to go to visit my sister soon. She also is terminally ill. Yes. My little sister. This one is hard. If I had deep pockets, it wouldn’t really matter where in the world I was. I would simply go to Hawaii when needed or when it made sense. But I don’t have deep pockets. Madrid is super far away from Hawaii. I instinctively feel I need to be closer to Hawaii. A four-hour flight away instead of a 16-hour flight away. Especially as I may have to go twice. If not more.

8. My main reason for returning to the U.S. was to work. I’ve been told I need to work for at least five more years. I can’t retire or semi-retire yet. Though the possibility remains I can still find a remote/portable solution, it seems logical that it will be easier to find work in the U.S. since I don’t speak Spanish fluently. The truth is, I’m dealing with age-ism at this point, and the likelihood that I’ll ever work in an office again is low. I just talked to my friend D. who’s my age, and he said the same thing. He said, I have to put myself out there as a consultant because no one will hire me at this point. That’s what I’m facing too. And, if I’m a consultant (which I am, by the way, with one awesome client), I can theoretically do that from anywhere. So, this one may not hold water.

9. I’m lonely. It’s true. I am lonely. That’s my own fault. I got a good start here. Found a writing group. Found the 50+ ladies expat group. Found a tango class and the tango milongas. And then, I got scared and retreated. And of course, since I had no “old” friends here, I found myself totally alone rather quickly, and yes, it freaked the hell out of me. I’m still too alone, but I’ve stabilized, I’m venturing out again, and I have a few social occasions set up. I’m doing the right thing. Taking baby steps.

10. No one knows me here. I have no history, no track record. This is true. Of course, this is a kind of cool — you have a blank slate. But, it’s just weird that people have no way of categorizing you, of knowing what kind of person you are, what kind of track record you have. My friend K. here keeps bringing up the woman we met for lunch one day who seems slippery indeed, whose Facebook picture looks nothing like her, whose dog keeps changing it’s name. It’s spooky. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.

11. I want to date, and I keep hearing it’s just appalling here. Also, even if I did meet a great man here, I don’t want to get “trapped” in Europe. I want to be able to go home. I’d rather meet a man in the Bay Area for whom that is also home. Yes. I made some feeble attempts at dating here. They did not bode well. The first guy literally stood me up — a first in my life. The second guy was catfishing me, and it took Claude telling me so before I figured it out. Yeah. I know.

12. I want to be near my daughter who is currently semi-estranged. I want to create the conditions that will allow her to come close again when she is ready. I want to be ready for her. Everyone who loves me says this thinking is wrong-headed and fallacious. They’re probably right (?), but there’s something in my bones, in my skin, that believes there’s something to this position I’m staking out. I’m not sure why.

13. I miss the California hills, the bay, the ocean, the beauty, the quality of the light, the fresh air, the friendly weather. And the aroma! California is full of the most marvelous herbal aromas—eucalyptus, bay, sage, mugwort, sagebrush, pine, and of course our soaring redwoods. I can’t think of oak having a scent… I’ve found myself drifting around Madrid, reaching out to rub a leaf between thumb and index finger, bringing my fingers to my nose, and… nothing! It’s an affront. An abomination. I miss California’s fragrant, heady hills.

14. I feel rootless, unmoored, adrift (because I am). Yes. I have no anchor. If I stay long enough, presumably, I will develop one. But, to echo one of the earlier points, how does a trim little boat have more than one anchor? It would break her apart, it would. Do I even want an anchor elsewhere? No, I don’t think I do. So, I will remain rootless, unmoored, and adrift here and elsewhere when not at home, and that’s okay. Maybe it’s even part of the appeal. Being a hobo and all that. In fact, it is. But, only if you know you’re going home. Eventually.

15. I miss my stuff, stuff I thought I was overwhelmed by. I thought I wanted to be free. But, I miss the self-defining aspect of the stuff I’ve inherited and collected. It says something about who I am. I’m suddenly fixated on the silver. The silver beneath my son’s bed, that used to be safely ensconced in the top middle drawer of the buffet I inherited from my grandmother. What the hell is it doing under my son’s bed? I think about it. I think about the Moroccan-Israeli man I dated years ago whose father was a taxi driver. When he saw my silver, he was agog. It represented something for him. A certain level of life, of living. It touched, and informed, me. In contrast, my oldest friend E. said, Oh no one wants that stuff anymore.

16. I will never be a Spaniard. I have no connection, culturally or genetically, to this land. I will always be a foreigner. Language, culture, history… I’m not part of the fabric here. And I don’t really want to be. Nothing draws me. Not to say I don’t love it. What’s not to love about Spain? But, it’s not mine. Spain will never claim me, and I will never try to claim her. I don’t want to always be on the outside looking in, which is currently the case and would always be the case.

17. I miss my friends. I know I can visit them, but it’s not the same. It’s not trivial to walk away from people you’ve known for multiple decades. I simply don’t have enough time left in my lifespan for people here to know me that well. It’s not the same. It’s occurring to me now that maybe I want to nurture the friendships I have rather than try to establish new ones (though I’m not certain these are mutually exclusive).

18. I want to be on U.S. soil to vote in the midterms. I want to be there when T. and his terrible crew are flung out. I want to be part of the celebration, and part of the re-building.

19. Taxes. To remain compliant with Spanish law, I need to register to pay taxes if I’m in the country longer than 183 days. There is a tax treaty between the U.S. and Spain, and the taxes I pay in the U.S. are counted toward my Spanish taxes (should I choose to register), but the overage, I hear, can be sizable.
    
    My friend E. said, You’re small fry. You won’t be in that category.
    
    I have friends here in Madrid who make sure they never spend more than 183 days in the country to avoid taxes. I’m trying to get clarity on how much of a concern this would be for me. But, it just seems like a headache (as taxes always do) and a quagmire.
    
    What if I register, stay more than 183 days, and then decide to move back home? Then, I would owe for 2026. Since I’m not sure about staying in Spain (and since I’m actually returning home this summer on a one-way ticket), it seems foolish to register.
    
    Which means to remain compliant, I need to leave before the 183-day mark (which means I need to be out of the country for roughly 33 days before leaving on July 28 — I have to stay till July 28th to avoid a penalty for breaking my lease before the six-month mark).
    
    Also, to pay taxes in two countries? It’s complicated enough as it is. That just gives me the heebie jeebies. So, perhaps I become one of those who leave Spain before 183 days and travel. Then, return. A middle ground.

20. I feel lost and forlorn here. Do I need a reason beyond that? Yes, I can try harder to make friends, find my people. Cultivate a life here. Why leave before giving it a real shot? It’s true. I told my therapist Leo last night I haven’t given it my all here. I made a good initial effort, got scared, became convinced I was making a terrible mistake, withdrew, became anxious, slip-slided into depression, and made my way out again. And here I am. Back on dry land, thank God. Thank you to my good, dear friends in the U.S. and my friends here too. The people who came to celebrate my 58th birthday with me. Thank you to my therapist Leo. Thank you. Yes, I’m more rational now. But, I’m still too alone and too isolated. If I decided to return and live here again, I’ll need to make more of an effort. And be patient.

21. All I know is that before I’d booked my flight home, I felt frightened, lost, and isolated. Once my flight home was booked, I was able to breathe again. The panic subsided. Maybe it’s my age, or maybe I’m more of a homebody than I realized. But, and I think this is age, or nascent wisdom (?), I just feel like, why not tend what I already have rather than pitching everything and starting all over again (I think I might be repeating myself here.)?

22. The Iran War scared me. As the world becomes increasingly unstable, I feel too far away. Too far away from my kids. I grew irrationally afraid that flight tickets might climb to $3000, and I’d be effectively stranded here. Yes, I read too much news. My son has said for years, Stop reading the New York Times, Mom.
    
    At the same time, the world really is in a kilombo in a way I perhaps haven’t seen in my adult life. It feels like I’m too far away. If the world tips into deeper disorder, I want to be home, near my kids and community. Batten down the hatches and all that. (On the other hand, one of my reasons for coming to Europe was to create a toehold for my kids in case they needed it.)

23. I know it will be hard in some ways to return home. My dear friend E. said yesterday, I think you will be shocked by how bad it is here now.
    
    I will be faced with lonely, empty streets while here the streets are teeming with people at all hours of the day. It’s like an affordable New York City. In Oakland, no one is really walking anywhere at all, and especially not after dusk. Everyone shuts themselves into their homes. If I don’t make a real effort to change my life, I will become isolated again there too. I have to change everything if I return. I can’t live the way I was before. I know it’s crazy. I know it’s worse there. Not to mention terrifyingly expensive.

24. BUT, I’ve done this now. I moved to Europe on my EU passport and proved it can be done. And it’s not all that hard, not logistically, anyway. I can do it again, if I need to. I can move to Europe again, if need be.

To answer the subtitle of this article, yes, there is a chance I should stay in Europe and pursue what was a life-long dream. It really is better here in so many ways. It’s just that it’s not my place. Not my home. Not my peeps. And my kids aren’t here.

That makes it a lark, by definition. Then, the question becomes, how long? At least finish out the year, my friends and therapist and son all say. Okay, but I can’t do that unless I register to pay for taxes. Unless I decide to ignore that. Which it seems a lot of folks here are doing. I’ve been here six months. Flit about for six more? For 12 more? For 18 more? Maybe.

I am going back to North America, as I’ve said. But, I don’t have an apartment or home there at the moment. I’m visiting a friend in Tunis from May 29 - 29. I’ve read Tunis is one-quarter the cost of Madrid, if not less. That’s intriguing. So, I can still decide this globe-trotting adventure isn’t kaput. I’ll see how I feel in September, after my stepson’s wedding in Minnesota. That’s when I will have to decide if I’m “home” again, or just visiting.

Stay tuned.

That began on Saturday with a proper merienda.

La Merienda at La Duquesita

I underestimated the merienda. I mean, I knew it existed, but I thought it was just an afternoon snack — a piece of cake or pastry enjoyed with a cup of coffee. And it is that, but it’s so much more, as I discovered yesterday at La Duquesita, a Belle Époque pastry shop and café founded in 1914. Named the best pastry shop in Madrid by the Royal Academy of Gastronomy in 2023, La Duquesita is a fantasia, with dark wood paneling, vaulted mirrors, curved glass display cases, and ornate brass lamps, all presided over by La Duquesita herself: a little alabaster figure brought from Italy more than a century ago and suspended from the corner of the room.

I’d been here before, for a flaky croissant with good chew, and for my torrija, the eggy Easter treat that’s Spain’s answer to French Toast. However, I’d never been here for merienda, and… what a scene! The place was packed with well-heeled patrons buzzing with excitement. Families marked by three generations and groups of friends streamed in and out of the gilt-and-glass door. I managed to snag a corner at the counter in the adjacent tea room, where I was served one of the cafe’s specialities, a palmera de chocolate — a crunchy puff pastry dipped in 70-percent chocolate — alongside a cappuccino.

From my perch, I watched as young women in brightly patterned blouses, boys in bow ties, and men in suits streamed by on the sidewalk. I asked my server what the occasion was. San Isidro, she said, Madrid’s patron saint whose feast day occurs this coming week.

True believers don traditional costumes, with women in polka-dot dresses and carnations in their hair and men in newsboy caps and pin-striped waistcoats. Traditionally, they picnic in the meadow beside the 17th-century San Isidro hermitage on the banks of the Manzanares River, where they dance and eat rosquillas, the traditional fried anise donuts made especially for the holiday.

San Isidro himself was a medieval peasant farmer who worked the fields outside Madrid for a nobleman. According to legend, angels plowed his fields while he prayed and performed miracles, including coaxing a spring from dry ground to quench his master’s thirst and feeding the poor from his own meager rations. He was canonized in 1622 alongside Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Ávila, Francis Xavier, and Philip Neri.

The meadow where madrileños still gather is where Goya set one of his most famous paintings — the Pradera de San Isidro, 1788 — depicting the citizens of Madrid flirting, drinking, and watching puppet shows. The painting hangs in the Prado, and the tradition it portrays remains essentially unchanged.

The festivities last all week. I’m to look out for a special “lemonade” of wine, lemon, sugar, and chopped apple. I’ll find it and report back.

Mercado San Marcos

After my merienda, I walked across barrio Chueca toward Mercado San Marcos. Chueca is a universe unto itself, bold, beautiful, and teeming with people. The narrow streets glistened in the rain. The parks were full of graceful arching trees and couples canoodling beneath umbrellas. Shops overflowed with beautiful textiles and ceramics. It’s the gay barrio of Madrid, and as proud as can be.

Mercado San Marcos is a compact covered market, three stories high, with cheese and charcuterie shops on the ground floor, tabernas and tapas joints on the second, and two elegant, glass-topped restaurants with massive potted plants on the third level.

I settled in on the second floor and ordered a bacalao toast point, a gilda, and a vermut on tap with an orange slice. The bacalao was divine — smoky, salty, and briny, just the way I like it, drizzled with a sweet-piquant sauce. The gilda, well, an olive, an anchovy, and a hot pickled pepper… What more could one want? At the next table, a couple in pinstripes, pinafores, and cute newsboy caps fed each other tapas bites and sipped cañas (small glasses of beer-on-tap). The very picture of old Madrid, they were dressed for San Isidro and clearly delighted about it.

A Barnacle Dinner

Saturday night, I decided I needed to do something special and truly Madrid. I’d done some research and found Ribeira do Miño, a famous old Galician marisquería on Santa Brigida Street, not far from my flat. I made a reservation for eight o’clock for two people. I was hoping to find a friend to join me, but the few people I know here are currently traveling, and I couldn’t rustle anyone up.

I entered alone, slightly trepidatious. I passed a huge glass case displaying equally huge crabs on shelves, and a kitchen with counters piled high with trays of all manner of shellfish. I explained to the host that my “friend” couldn’t come, and was seated in the second room. I was definitely the only person dining alone. Judging from the heaping towers of seafood arriving at every table around me, this is a place best enjoyed as a couple, if not as a party. But I persevered.

The spot was founded in 1975 and looks it, not in a bad way. It’s more throwback than shabby. The walls are covered with murals of fishing boats at sea, the corners hung with fishing nets and scuffed old buoys. An elegant (and rather austere) woman at the table to my right wore a champagne-colored silk blouse that matched her platinum hair and gold jewelry.

First came the barnacles — percebes — which are as strange and wonderful as they sound. They look like dinosaur paws, or elephant trunks, or something that crawled out of the Jurassic sea. You tear off the non-claw-end and suck the meat out. They’re completely unadulterated, just barely warmed, arriving in their own briny liquor, which I made sure to extract from every bizarre tube. Delicious and more than a little sexy. They do spurt unexpectedly, so don’t wear white. :)

After the barnacles, I was served a grilled hake that made me moan with pleasure, alongside, of course, a crisp albariño.

Las Mayas

The next morning, I walked over to the Lavapiés barrio to witness Las Mayas, a festival celebrating the return of spring, fertility, and renewal. On the way there, it began to rain. I hadn’t yet had my coffee and was in search of breakfast. The hip brunch spots were packed, and besides I felt like looking into a traditional Bangladeshi breakfast. This is the part of town with a huge population of immigrants from Bangladesh, India, Senegal, and Morocco. The rain became torrential, and I ducked into a Bangla restaurant filled with men. I was the sole woman in the establishment.

I asked the young man at the counter about breakfast. He looked at me dubiously. We don’t really have brunch here, he said. No, I mean a traditional Bangla breakfast, I assured him. He showed me to a four-top, where a young man was already seated. The server brought mint tea and a beef curry, a soup really, with slivered ginger and jalapeños, showered in cilantro. The beef was spoon-tender, the naan flecked with black mustard seeds, and the tea sweet and minty with a hint of ginger. The meal was a delight.

While I was enjoying my curry, a couple of women ducked under the scaffolding just outside the window. They ignored us as they smoked something through a metal pipe. One wore a bright platinum wig. The other had a severely offset and jutting jaw. A few minutes after they left, two young African men took up the same spot for the same endeavor. One of them — the one in the jacket with stripes the colors of Africa, red, green, yellow, and black — caught me staring. His eyes locked on mine and widened. Mine did too, I think. I smiled, nodded in deference, and put my right hand on my heart. He grinned and turned to do his business. I afforded them privacy after that.

Then I went to find the mayas. I made my way up the cobblestoned streets of Lavapies, following the sounds of flutes and horns. In front of the San Lorenzo Church, costumed young madrileños danced in the persistent rain, holding umbrellas. Young girls sat immobile on their flower altars as men stoically held umbrellas over their heads. A man in a kerchief handed me a red carnation.

Movies

I was riveted by an early film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt called Mysterious Skin (2004), directed by Gregg Araki. It’s a stark, searing portrait of two boys whose lives are destroyed by a predatory baseball coach. One, played by a very young Joseph Gordon-Levitt, becomes a hustler. The other, whose memory has buried the abuse entirely, becomes convinced he was abducted by aliens as a child. It’s devastating, brave, and unforgettable. Gordon-Levitt is extraordinary. I knew he was a good actor, but… wow.

Music

Pat Metheny’s instrumental version of Jimmy Webb’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, with Charlie Haden on Beyond the Missouri Sky (1997) is an old favorite of mine I’d like to share. It’s a piece about intense longing, the ache of living, of wanting, and of loving. It’s sad, hopeful, and beautiful all at once. It shows us that even amidst great pain, there is beauty, and even nobility.

This morning, after those self-care duties, I set off for Lavapies to check on my friend D.’s plants again. I walked about seven blocks to the metro stop at Tribunal on Fuencarral St. I felt good because I had tied a silk scarf around my neck, atop the orange-beige and black leopard-striped silk shell I’d picked up at the 5-Euro thrift shop (where everything is 5 Euros). The silk scarf sort of matched in a way that I liked. I mean, it matched, but in an unexpected manner, and that made me feel good. Creative. Thoughtful. Like I cared. About myself. Like I took some care. And in pretending to be a person that took care, I became a person that took care.

The metro car was pretty full. I found myself gazing at all of the people there, one by one, and I thought, with amazement and incredulity, All of these people here hurt too. Some of them are hurting right now. A lot. Some of them may be desperate. Some are sick. Some have family members who are dying or who have died. Some are frightened. Some are, perhaps, relaxed. I was riveted. I thought, Wow. You are not the only one who suffers. This should be obvious, I know. I’m sorry to admit, it’s not always.

But, I’m thinking about it more. Suddenly, I was flooded with compassion for us all. For the older man assiduously avoiding anyone’s gaze. For the woman with pink hair wearing a pink tracksuit, pink tee shirt, and pink tennis shoes. For the old woman in neat little black shoes with a little heel, ill-advised for someone her age, and all the more charming because of it. I gazed at that little heel, wondered what she was thinking when she bought the shoes, how she chose a last vestige of fashion over comfort, at an age when we’re supposed to wear only flat shoes. It made me respect her. It made me gaze upon her face with admiration, as she spoke intently to the woman beside her. It made me happy. This little act of self-respect that reverberated out to all of us.

D. had left me in charge of her Lavapies apartment. She said with confidence, I think you can just go in a week, or something akin to that, when she left. The week was warm. I didn’t think about that enough. When I finally did go the other day, on the eighth day since D.’s departure, the plants were definitely thirsty. The apartment was warm, still, and stuffy. I opened all the windows and carefully checked in with and watered all of the plants. I’m sorry to say one on the ledge between the kitchen and the couch was beyond peaked. I don’t think she’ll make it, and I’m so sorry about this. In fairness, I don’t totally blame myself… but I do a little. I wish I’d gone sooner. I texted D. about it in NYC, where she’s visiting her kiddos. She was nice about it.

I went again today, as I said, a couple of days after watering everyone. The plants I watered over the weekend were, all but one, dry again. I watered them again, carefully, slowly, and spent some time with them, but I had to close the window I had opened because D. said sometimes pigeons come in if it’s left open (!).

When I left D.’s flat, I made my way two doors down to the Chinese cafe D. and I sometimes meet at because it’s virtually deserted at all hours so the proprietors don’t care if we’re on laptops for hours there. When I entered, the place was sweltering, which immediately annoyed me. I mentioned it to the scruffy-haired Chinese youth behind the counter, who was immediately annoyed by me. He then served me a stale croissant which I returned. Of course, he denied it was stale, but eventually brought me a fresh one. The last two sips of my coffee were cold when he got around to it. I don’t forgive him.

Across the room, a middle-aged woman with a Russian accent was teaching English loudly from her laptop, which began grating on me.

But, the news of the day is actually significant, even though it’s peppered and couched by annoyances and grievances on all sides.

I spent today writing a short story.

It’s due tomorrow.

I said, at least two months ago, I would submit a story to a local English-language short story contest. The date of submission is upon us. Did I write it, as I said I would? Reader, I did not. However, I now have 24 hours in which to do so. Of course, it’s just like me to paint myself into a corner like this, put myself under silly pressure, and then produce something that won’t and can’t be even remotely ready, setting myself up for “failure.” Alas. This is a pattern I know. However, the me of these days would have let the date slide by and continued to have been inert, rousing herself days later perhaps to say, Oh yeah, I was going to do that thing. Oh well.

I’ve been saying for years now, to myself, Do what you said you were going to do. Just do it, even badly.

So, I am turning in the so-called short story tomorrow, no matter what kind of tatters it’s in.

But, here’s the real news: I enjoyed writing it. I was in flow. Good or bad, no matter. It felt like the right thing to be doing, the only thing, in fact, to be doing. The next right thing. The only right thing.

I chose to do it, write it, that is, in a green notebook with pencil. I brought a pencil sharpener encased in little plastic box with a green top for the frequent shavings. I wrote, and I wrote. I wrote several pages, easily. When I had to go to the bathroom and didn’t feel like asking someone to watch my computer bag, etc., I packed everything up, stopped at the bathroom, where the broken hand drier and absence of paper towels annoyed me, and set off, back to the metro. I briefly considered walking all the way back; Lord knows it would do me good. But I made a beeline for the metro because… writing. Writing in the green notebook. In other words, staying on task.

In the metro, there was a young couple who immediately annoyed me, the guy especially. The guy only, actually. First of all, they refused to move for anyone. There was all this space behind them. The car was full and crowded, but they ignored everyone. The guy was unattractive. Short, plain, boring-looking, and even worse — self-officious as well. He kept planting big, loud, wet, juicy kisses on his paramour, and even stuck his tongue down her throat at least twice. She, with her tattooed forearms, passively accepted this, but I couldn’t glean if she was actually into it. When he wasn’t smacking his mouth upon her loudly, he was droning on at her. I found myself casting mean looks his way and forced myself to stop. I asked myself, Why are you so mad? Why, indeed. It was the arrogance. The selfishness. The cluelessness. The lack of elegance or any shred of class. Wow. Look at me. Lol.

On the walk toward my flat from the Tribunal metro station, I passed a little door propped open on a corner. I peered inside to see a vision from a prior era, a little patisserie. I wish I’d snapped a photo, but I didn’t think of it in time, and when I did, a worker was already rolling down the metal door. But, inside, what I glimpsed was a narrow little shop, green and gold, covered in dust, boasting curves of all kinds, in brass, in curlicue writing, in it’s very name: Pattiserie. It was curves and belle epoch the whole way. A big cardboard sign had been affixed to the outside of the little shop, above the pretty door, advertising it for sale. I felt my heart pang for this place. I want so badly for someone to come and preserve her, preserve the vestiges of this prior era, create a little cake shop resting on the exceptional bones of this prior, bright, green and gold one.

Across the street from that, interestingly enough, was another shop similar to this. This one, I knew something about. I know it’s owned by the very talented restaurateur who owns El Mano and Tobaccos, two of my favorite local joints. I knew that squatters lived there, and that he’d been waiting for them to move on. And, lo and behold, it looks like they have. Today, there were workers inside, and this one, I did manage to snap a picture of, and I’m elated because this exceptional and sensitive restaurateur that I speak of likes to find these old places and preserve the best things about them, simply refreshing them and then assigning a stellar staff to turn out divine dishes and set tall narrow vases of flowers upon every table.

Here it is:

And here:

I intended to head straight to the flat, but veered over to Lizandro, a cafe nearby with a green-painted door and a black-and-white floor where they don’t seem to mind me pulling out my laptop. I did not do that this time. In fact, I pulled the green notebook from my backpack, as well as the pencil and the sharpener. When the young man came by, I ordered a “flat-white” (they are v. popular here, not as milky as a cafe au lait, so good for a second coffee), and got back to work. Again, I felt like I was doing the right thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s “good.” In fact, how could it be? I’ve ignored any potential talent I may have had for so long I’m like a gorgon, essentially, but in the spirit of better-late-than-never, I slogged on, and I enjoyed it, tbh.

A young couple sat two tables down from me. They were American, and from the Bay Area. The clean-cut blonde youth was from San Francisco, in fact, and she may have been too. I only partially eavesdropped so I don’t know their whole story. He spoke of money, finance, founders, fintech, working for devilish companies for only so long, just to make some money and then get out. I didn’t fault him for it. In fact, I thought he was smart, and I marveled at their self-confidence, as I marvel at my current client’s assistant’s self-confidence. Only a college senior, not even out in the job market yet, and she already has so many skills, and — more importantly — SO much confidence. I never had confidence like that in my whole life, and still don’t. And yes, fake it till you make it. I know. I know.

It rained last night, and it’s raining on and off today. The sun slides out from behind the clouds in peripatetic bursts, turning everything technicolor and then disappearing again like a game of peek-a-boo.

When I got back to my flat, I pulled the leftover chicken from the fridge to heat up a third time. It was on its last legs — I knew that, and I availed myself of deep sniffs to make sure it hadn’t turned. Seemed okay. I comforted myself by thinking of the money I’m saving. Also, to be fair, I don’t want to waste the good food I make. But, it does make me laugh that it takes me nearly a whole week somehow to polish off a dish consisting of a measly three chicken thighs. The taste was fine, but not great, certainly not as good as it was the first night. I had a glass of red wine with it. It was post-lunch hour in Madrid, close to 4 p.m., a fine time for a glass of wine. IMHO. I wasn’t hard on myself about it.

I listened to music as I heated up my chicken lunch. Led Zeppelin’s Fool in the Rain came on, sending a thrill of recognition and appreciation through my body. I turned it up loud and danced with a dish towel on my shoulder, and I thought about how life isn’t always easy. I cried a little, thinking about my daughter again. I’m not sure how Led Zeppelin’s Fool in the Rain led to thoughts of my daughter, but they arrive every day like clockwork, one way or another. Missing her, missing her, missing her. I laughed ruefully as I thought about all of the things we have in common. How she has adopted the word “forest” in some of her online presence, just as I have. I’m sure she’s not aware of this.

Yesterday, what sent the tears rolling down my cheeks was thinking I may never get to visit her at the restaurant she works at — a fact I’m not even supposed to know about, a restaurant my parents took me to when I was 12, a restaurant a beloved took me to when I was 30 and again at 50, a restaurant I celebrated a friend’s 75th birthday at, a restaurant, in other words, that’s important to me. But, she may not know that. And I suppose it doesn’t matter. It’s no more than an inconvenient fact.

Not to get all maudlin.

Listening to Fool in the Rain, it occurs to me this song could never be written today. It’s about a man thinking he’s been forsaken by his love, but he’s just standing on the wrong corner, a fool in the rain. He can’t call his beloved to see where she is because there’s no way to do that, just like in Hardy’s wonderful “Far From the Madding Crowd,” when Fanny Price’s blunder of going to the wrong church costs her her life and the life of her child.

The lilies in the vases in the corners of my flat from my 58th birthday party last week have all died and wilted, and their powdery petals lie scattered limply on the floor.

And now Under Pressure plays. The inimitable David Bowie and the one and only Freddy Mercury weave their voices together, singing their hearts out about the days it never rains, but it pours, about the terror of knowing what this world is about. About watching good friends pushed to the edge. And of course, about love, how love dares us to change our way of thinking… and yes. I can do that, change my way of thinking. We can all do that.

Can’t we?

First of all, I’m 58! My birthday was this week, and I had a par-tay, and I’m so glad I did. If I’d drifted around the city alone, or worse, barricaded myself inside to watch movies on Mubi, I’d be deflated indeed.

Instead, I’m… light. Light-hearted, light on my feet. Light because friends came. Sure, they’re very new friends. They know me almost not at all and vice versa, but it doesn’t matter. They showed up. They dressed up. They came bearing gifts: flowers, wine, fancy olive oil, fig jam, a smelly, oozing truffle-cheese, pomegranate vinegar, flor de sal paprica, and… a seashell!

My dear neighbor on the floor below me brought a bag of gifts including a sculpture he made, soap he made, a handsome keychain, and a little leather bag that snaps shut. Dear W., my ex-’s cousin, brought me a delicate necklace with a grey stone charm flecked in black and a certificate to a photo shoot by… him, a talented photographer.

I spruced up the flat and didn’t spend too much in the process. I hung two strands of fairy lights here and there. I fished some wine bottles out of the recyling bin, removed the labels, and arranged them in a set of three atop the high shelf running across the back wall of the living room. I also placed two baskets up there, and two plants that (will eventually) hang down: a pothos and an ivy.

As I attempted to buy a bunch of pink lilies, the woman selling them from a cart on the street suddenly pressed three bunches into my arms—two pink and one white—and a bunch of baby’s breath for good measure. A gift, she said. A good deal, she said. And so it was.

I bought incredible cheese from my Senegalese cheese guy across the street, and damn, I can’t tell you what it was; I’m sorry! One was a manchego of course. Every time I go in there, he sells me a manchego. The other, soft, pungent, runny, orange-rinded, was crazy-great, and everyone went nuts for it. Oh, also a creamy blue like a Cambonzola, which I stuffed into fat, ripe medjool dates, pressing a candied walnut atop each.

The gifts started early — in fact, the day before the party. Every vendor I visited gave me a gift. My cheese guy gave me a container of fresh cheese that’s amazing whipped, drizzled with honey, and served with strawberries. The spice lady in my local mercado gifted me a handful of candies. The butcher gave me a strip of some kind of cured pork dangling from the end of his knife as I was buying two steaks for the steak bites. And with my coffee, the proprietor randomly added a tiny slice of chocolate cake to the saucer alongside my cafe con leche. It’s not uncommon here, and it’s charming, these presents. With every drink or caña (small glass of beer), you get a gift, anything from a dish of (very good) potato chips to a bowl of green olives to a loaded side-salad replete with olives, tuna, capers, and eggs.

For the party, I made garlic butter steak bites, a sort of loaded french fries concept from Ottolenghi, a big chopped salad with guanciale, cherry tomatoes, feta, and jammy eggs. Seared endives with a balsamic reduction sauce drizzled atop (they were super easy and the bomb). Candied nuts, which I love all forms of. I also served a very fine cheesecake from Vanille Bakery Lab in neighboring Chamberi.

I got two bottles of crisp Albariño, two bottles of silky Ribera del Duero, and two bottles of house tinto de pueblo from the cheese shop. My dear neighbor downstairs who brought the bag of gifts requested a beer when he got here. Alas, I had no beer. He settled for some white wine for a minute, then dashed out and returned with a case of Estrella Galicia cerveza, and funny enough the beer was very popular! We only went through two-and-a-half bottles of wine among about 12 people, but the beer was decimated.

I had a handful of guests who spoke little English, including my dear neighbor, so the party was largely conducted in Spanish, and there was much I couldn’t understand even remotely, but I was in my element, happy to see people enjoying themselves and getting to know one another, eating and drinking in a space flickering with candles amid the strains of my kinda jazz.

My guests were aged roughly 35 to 70, a diverse group spanning countries and callings. Represented were England, Venezuela, the US, and of course Spain. Artists, journalists, attorneys, designers, writers.

As the party wound down, my neighbor invited the few stragglers who remained to his rooftop terrace to peer at the city of Madrid, across the top of the darkened 16th century convent next door (where nuns still live; apparently they retire early), toward “the king’s forest” as I’ve heard Parque del Oeste called, and over to the other side, deeper toward Gran Via, Centro, and Sol.

My guests were delighted. We peered down at people eating dinner on multiple terraces around us (yes, near midnight on a Wednesday) in the balmy, late-April, evening air, including two sexy guys on a terra cotta porch. The ladies and I had fun deciding which one we wanted, until the guys noticed us examining them and got maybe a little annoyed.

It’s been a good week. It was good to have a project. The party represented a project. It was good to be social. It was very good to cook, even though my ceramic (?) induction stovetop and peculiar hybrid oven flummox me no end. I struggle with both of them and am out of my comfort zone. I’m going to have to spend some time practicing with these completely foreign appliances.

The weather in Madrid is beyond gorgeous. The days are sweet and balmy. The streets are filled with flowering buckeyes and acacias. Green corridors are suddenly appearing everywhere as trees I failed to see and register now sport heaps of gorgeous, tender green leaves that toss and flutter and reach across the streets toward one another like long-parted lovers.

I found a beloved old neighborhood cheese shop this week. They were closed for siesta, but I was wowed by the big slabs of mouth-watering wheels presented in the window, behind bars no less. I understood the need.

I’m plowing through Mubi’s catalogue and seeing some incredible films in the process. To be honest, I didn’t even know film could be like some of the works I’ve seen. I’ve never seen film like some of these flicks. For example, Mysterious Skin, an early (and incredible) effort by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (how can he possibly be 45 now?) and a real wowzer. It’s shocking, brave, searing, important, and unforgettable.

And a film I’d never even heard of, with an actor I’d never heard of, directed by an auteur I’d never heard of. I clearly have a lot to learn. The film is The Fall, “the definition of a cult classic" according to Mubi, directed by Tarsem and starring a mesmerizing Lee Pace. It’s a totally unique film, the likes of which I’m certain I’ll never see again, full of searing images and set in preposterously grand and beautiful settings on just about every continent in the world. It’s a joy to know about this effort. It changed me.

I’m listening to music, practicing yoga, meditating, and walking every day. Today, I set off for the library at the International Institute, the “North American Cultural Center of Madrid,” where a librarian named Rebecca, formerly of San Francisco (!), toured me around the (slightly sparse) library, took my photo, and presented me with my new membership card. On the way, I marveled at all of the new cafes, shops, and restaurants, a whole new batch I’d never seen before, new streets, new fountains, a whole neighborhood I hadn’t walked through yet, and it’s only 20 minutes away.

It’s quite something. There are thousands of cafes, so many good ones. Stately old ones with wood paneling and shiny brass hardware, cakes in the windows and fun, new, modern ones, and some in between, like Monkee Koffee, which I discovered the other day about eight blocks up the street from me. I liked them, with their oxblood-red and chrome espresso machine, leather couches, wood shutters, and plants everywhere. They were like a throwback cafe from the 70s. I appreciated the vibe and stayed a while. I felt happy there.

I had a freak-out. In fact, I was freaking out for weeks. I bought a ticket home, and I immediately felt better. But, now that I have that escape hatch, I’m feeling more comfortable in Madrid again and about my decision to come here. I’m just going to have to take things day by day. Find sources of income, stabilize, connect, study Spanish, be disciplined, practice my yoga, get enough sleep. Practice doing the next right thing. And see what unfolds.

I found it charming, and in recent times, I find the words bubbling to the top of my head. Like a real girl, I say, as I try again to figure out how to exist in this world. By exist, I mean, how to give myself permission to be happy and free from anxiety. How to do the work, proceed, be dogged. Find a path that will support me, that makes sense, that will make me reasonably happy. Figure out my so-called second act. Seize the day, seize the opportunity, cultivate gratitude.

Figuring out how, exactly, to tackle all of this, however, has been a tall order. I feel like I’m crashing about in my life, and from one angle, I am. But my therapist says, Watch the words. Am I really crashing about — signifying destruction — or am I trying things, experimenting, seeing how I feel, what I think, what I discover? Honoring myself and my process? Permitting myself to make mistakes? This is also true. In fact, it’s equally true. It’s all about what lens I choose to put on things.

What if I finally chose to treat myself gently and with unconditional love, as Gepetto treats Pinocchio, even when he’s crashing about in his own life? Becoming a real boy, or a real girl, as the case may be, for me means becoming fully human. I often feel like I’m a shrunken version of myself living inside an outline I don’t reach the borders of. My son often says, Stop living so small, Mom.

He’s right. I live small.

When I tell my friend K. I’m afraid, she says blithely, You’re afraid of everything. As in, What else is new?

My friend H. recently said, gently and carefully, I think it’s time to look into anti-anxiety and -depression meds. That scared me. I don’t want to be on meds. I don’t want a flattened aspect and no libido. I’m grateful that at 58 I still have one, and really don’t want to mess with it.

My dear friend C. said recently, Maybe you’re hitting your bottom and advised (again) attending Alanon meetings.

My therapist has disappeared for perhaps the fourth time. I won’t reach out this time.

My son recently asked for “a break” He doesn’t want to talk for a couple of months, “for starters.”

My good friend M. told me last week, I don’t think your daughter is ready to talk to you yet. She’s much more hardened and barricaded than I realized.

The truth is, I’m exhausting my friends, and I’ve apparently exhausted my family. What the hell am I doing?

My dear friend H. also said, No one can live your life for you.

I don’t think I’m a lost cause, or hopeless.

But I do think it’s time to commit to doing the work, for real.

I don’t understand why I haven’t broken through, or why I keep falling back into some kind of pit. I sometimes feel as though I have some kind of locked-in syndrome. What will it take to break out of this prison I keep casting myself into?

The work of becoming a real girl. A full human, someone who lives all the way to her edges, who understands what it actually means to be human, with all the mess, confusion, pain, and wonder that entails.

I want to be authentic, but not depressing. Take my life seriously. Focus on what’s important to me.

As most of my readers know, I moved to Madrid, Spain, on December 1st. I’ve been here for almost five months now. I got a good start. I found some friends, began attending expat events, joined a tango class. I found an apartment in a beautiful neighborhood. I thought I’d find a job pretty easily. I’ve never had trouble finding work before. It’s only in recent times, in the past couple of years, that I’ve come up short.

And that has scared the living daylights out of me.

I’m in that awkward place: too old to hire, to young to retire.

Is it a path I need? Or just some grace? Some grace within myself? I need to become Gepetto to my Pinocchio-girl — a real girl. A real girl who searches, tries, fails, and tries again. Gepetto loved Pinocchio with all his heart. It made no difference to him that Pinocchio lied, stole, deceived, chose bad friends, and wasted every second chance he was given.

And Pinocchio? He doesn't become a real boy by wanting it. He becomes real the moment he stops running from the effort that real life requires. From being known, truly known, with all of his flaws. Running from himself, essentially. Every escape was also an escape from having to reckon with who he was.

Is that what I’m doing? My son would say yes.

Time to grow up, at 58. It’s never too late.

My friend T. is still here, and it’s making me think. I really do want a partner. I really don’t want to do this alone anymore.

A few years ago… hell, what am I saying? It was more than ten years ago now. It was 11 or 12 (or more?) years ago when my friend said, cuttingly, “Enough with all the fucking men.”

It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t trying to be mean. She was right. She had asked how I was, and instead of answering how I was, I began describing how my men were, essentially. At that time, it happened to be a sexy Colombian tango dancer with whom I was flirting (and then some) even though I was supposed to be dating my straight-as-an-arrow, princely boyfriend whom my dad loved, whom everyone loved. Whom I loved.

I thought I wasn’t good enough for him. In fact, I was sure of it. (And I may have been right.) But, here’s the clincher. He thought I was more than good enough for him. He loved me very much. And once he said to me, I accept you completely, all of you, every part.

Of course being young(er) and still patently unwise, I assumed I’d keep having such men throwing themselves at my feet. I had always been able to date whenever I liked. That isn’t true for everyone. But I took the men that liked me for granted. And the ones I really liked? I assumed if they knew the real me, they’d change their minds fast. Worse than that, deep inside I believed I was toxic. I’m afraid I still believe that.

Of course, it’s not true. How can it be? In my logical brain I know this is hogwash. I’m as great and flawed as the next person most likely. Meaning, yes, I have good parts to myself and less-than-stellar parts. I’m “fun” as one boyfriend said (I took that as a great compliment), a “great lover” another one or two said.

And yet, instead of choosing one of the solid, stable, kind, and good men that loved me, I chose my poor, broken-winged ex- who was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Rather severe too, and worse with every mania-depression cycle. And yet, like Edith Piaf, how can I possibly say or imply I regret this? It was not, is not regrettable. I love my ex-, still. Everyone knows that.

But where was I? Oh, yes, my tango friend T. visiting me. He was in Toledo for the week, but is back. He arrived yesterday evening, and we went out to the milonga he’d found near the Tetuan Metro station. It was in a big room with a kind of cat-walk overhead and drop-ceilinged porticoes flanking a big, high-ceilinged dance floor.

We bought our tickets from two ladies in a little glassed-in box office painted pink and hot pink. As we paid our fare, which came with either one alcoholic or two “soft” drinks, several other dancers came in behind us.

The milonga began slowly, but picked up speed. T. was unimpressed with the DJ at first. He found the music slow, romantic, and stultifying. But over time, the DJ began to play more upbeat and “beated” if you will music, i.e., music with a strong beat, like D’Arienzo. Then, my friend was happier.

As we settled in, T. spotted a tall, gangly guy. He observed him dancing for a while and said, Avoid dancing with him. Of course, that’s who asked me first. I accepted only because I’d observed smiles on the faces of the followers I’d seen him with. Now, I think they may have been polite grimaces. For, I was grimacing. T. was absolutely right. This leader was pungent with garlic, but worse than that were the fluttering fingers on my back and the generally poor leading which left me guessing and floundering.

Every dance after that was better, and then better still. I got some really great dances, actually, and was pleased with the evening. I’m rusty, it’s true, after leaving tango behind on and off since the pandemic. And then, just as I was finding my way back, I abandoned tango again when my ex- arrived last year for what was supposed to be a visit.

I haven’t danced at all for more than a year. So, I’m fighting my way back again. I was far less than perfect. But, when it worked, it worked, and I was reminded of why I love tango so much, how good it feels when two dancers melded together create something special, something ineffable, that would be impossible to achieve alone.

T. said I can stand to make my embrace more expansive, more cozy, more snuggly. He even gently moved my arm to embrace him a little more fully. The funny thing is, this is how I originally approached tango when I first began to learn. It’s what I love about tango: the embrace. But, I’ve gotten shy. I wonder, now that I’m almost 58, is it inappropriate to embrace, to truly embrace? (What do I think I am? A complete ogre?)

Last night, I saw several women much older than I am embracing their leaders with no compunction. I saw a old woman who looked unwell, truth be told, but when she began dancing, and that beatific smile crept over her face, she became beautiful. And again, with an old man with a stooped back… he looked so old at his table. Dignified in a starched striped shirt with white collar, but old. But when he got up and began to dance, he immediately looked at least ten years younger.

But, wait? What’s my point? There is so much to say, so much to write. I have trouble corralling my thoughts. I want a partner. Yes, I do. Just having someone to experience life with is a big deal. It puts a pin in the experience. It’s solidifies experience, at least for me. It’s like the tree-in-the-forest koan. If I didn’t experience it with someone, did it happen at all?

(Is that codependence rearing its ugly head again?)

Even though T. isn’t a shopper per se and didn’t much want to linger at the artisan stalls we stumbled upon in Chueca today, just having him in tow allowed me to do so. I’d seen this market last month, but last month I was alone, and lonely. It’s so true that we experience the world through filters our minds erect. In a lonely, sad mood, the artisan wares were not interesting. Today, I allowed my eye to linger. I felt myself part of the city, part of the experience, a moment that will never occur again: this morning in Chueca, where I brought T. for a croissant and a coffee at La Duquesita, and we stumbled on this fair, which opened up to a vast square teeming with folks enjoying coffee or a caña (a small glass of draft beer). T. waited for me on a bench. When I joined him, a young woman sat beside me and began to nurse her two or three-month-old baby, which made me feel tender, of course.

Also, I bought my daughter a pair of earrings for her birthday. Years ago, she had a delightful pair of dangly cherry earrings made of felt. They were so fun and unusual. Today, I found a little pair of dangling cherry earrings, made of… I’m not sure. Glass or ceramic. I will send them to my son to pass on to her. They may or may not be appreciated. My therapist says sending her letters, gifts, even cash occasionally, may not be welcome. That it may be construed as a boundary crossing. Not sure what to say to that. I have to do what feels right to me, in the absence of any information.

I’m trying to be good at being alone, but really there’s no need, is there. Why? It’s better to be with and among people. We are tribal animals after all.

Oh, I remember in part where I was going with this essay. My friend, who was dying at the time, said, “Enough with all the fucking men.”

She’d asked me, How are you? (Can you imagine the generosity of that question, asked just a couple of days before her death?)

I’d answered by beginning to tell her about the latest amour I was entertaining myself with. She cut me off with that shocking statement.

I was hurt, and flabbergasted. But I knew almost immediately she was right. I’d been distracting myself with men my entire life. Men (or boys then) were my drug of choice as a young teenager. They were a perfect antidote to the craziness unfolding on my homefront. Making out in cars was beyond fun. It of course took me completely out of my body, or drove me so deeply into my body that my head — my fears, worries, concerns, shame — no longer held pride of place or prominence. It was ambrosia. Subliminity itself.

But, how was I? I really had no idea.

After my friend died, I had one more misadventure with a man, and this was a big one, and a truly disastrous one. Let’s just say, he turned out to be not a good guy. My son called him a street dog. And he was. A cur. And no more than that.

After that, it was curtains on dating. I thought I was taking a break. And I was. But that break has gone on, and on, and on. I think I’m done. I think I’ve paid my penance. I think I’ve grown at least a modicum. I think I’m humbled.

I’m crying uncle now.

I tried to date here in Madrid a bit. I got on a dating site. My first date stood me up (a first for me). My second potential amor turned out to be catfishing me. I was going along with it too, until Claude of all things cautioned me.

I know I need to learn how to live alone, to be alone. I know I don’t get to parent anymore, and I miss it so much. I’m an empty-nester feeling the pain of that more than ever. I’m cut off from my daughter (by her choice), from my son (by distance), and from my friends, neighbors, community, and everything I know.

I’m living the dream in Madrid, and Madrid is all that everyone says it is. It really is a very easy place to be.

That doesn’t mean I will stay here. It’s not home. I worry that when I do decide to go home, flight prices will be through the roof. I worry I will barely recognize home, that it won’t feel right. I worry about turning tail in defeat. What did I say I was coming to Spain to do? My wise friend S. often asks me that, gently. Remember why you went to Spain. What were your reasons for going?

I came to Spain to live in Europe on my EU passport for a couple of years. I came to Spain for high-quality food with no pesticides or hormones. I came to Spain for a car-free existence, where the Metro is superb, totally safe, and squeaky clean. I came to Spain for affordable healthcare. For beautiful streets, fountains, statues, churches, and architecture. For a relaxed lifestyle, people in the streets, people enjoying life, ambition not driving and centering everything. For a certain softness.

All of that is here. But trying to enjoy it all alone and isolated isn’t working. When T. leaves, I will re-commit to tango, in fact I will hold onto tango for dear life. I will join meet-ups, meet more people. Learn more about the city and the country. Learn some Spanish. And document my journey.

Maybe I will return home to California in August. Until then, I have a chance to make the most of this experience. What will I do with my one perfect life?

In the 19th century, people with the dreaded tuberculosis were said to have consumption, marked by coughing, fever, and inexorable weight loss, as if the body is being consumed.

Is it any accident we now speak of a different kind of consumption — media consumption, social media in particular — in similar terms? Like everyone else, my attention is getting feeble, fractured. My mind darts here and there. I read Substack Notes for two hours without blinking an eye. I attempt to read a book and pick up my phone three times in ten minutes. I lean on Google Maps for dear life, rarely letting myself get lost. I check reviews before trying new cafes or restaurants. “Reviews” that are often unhelpful indeed now that everyone apparently knows how to game the system. It’s abundantly clear I need to rely on my own radar again.

My own radar. My own sense of self, needs, preferences, intuitions, observations, feelings. My own experience.

And each other. Maybe we can finally turn to one another again. Not just anyone of course. We need to pick people who care about such things. Not everyone is good at recommending a restaurant. For many people, food is sustenance and little else. In fact, the fancier, more foreign, or more interesting it is, the less these folks are interested.

But our food-loving friends? They are a gold mine, of course. I’m thinking of course of my friend L. whose recommendations literally never fail. How does she know? She hears, intuits, and knows the food community well, as she is a revered member herself of that community. Her recommendations will beat a supposed five Google stars any day.

Back to consumption. I am consuming non-stop, letting all kinds of digital excesses in. Many of them are “good,” meaning, smart, helpful, interesting, important. They are offerings from artists, fledgling writers, young and/or avant garde filmmakers. I’m thinking now of my rabbit hole-evenings, especially since before K. arrived, where I watched revered, sensitive, “important” films on Mubi night after night. It was good… I mean, it felt meaningful, but I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression, and guess what? Staying in night after night, after being home most of every day looking for work does not a very good boy (or girl in this case) make.

In fact, by the time T. arrived, I was in a real pit. I had a bona fide anxiety attack in my kitchen last week, just after adding Item No. 50 to my To-Do List. I nearly blacked out. That same week, I had an smaller anxiety attack of some sort in bed and struggled to manage my breathing.

I talked to my son last night. He’s so good, of course. He steadies me incredibly. I’m so proud of him. He’s doing the work. He’s encouraging me (and has been for years) to do the work as well.

And you know what? Let’s give credit where credit is due. I’m doing the work too. Not perfectly, not in the most organized fashion, and not with the greatest commitment always, but I am doing it. I’m seeing a therapist, and after believing my therapist (whom I like) had abandoned me, he reappeared yesterday. I immediately forgave him, relieved I don’t have to go back to the new therapist Kaiser served up who said three times during our very first, 50-minute meeting, “I’m over-sharing.”

That really happened. My dear friend S., who is a therapist, was aghast. Really? she asked. She’s so even-keel, I could hear in her voice a note of uncharacteristic flabbergasted-ness, if that’s a word. (It is now.)

Here’s the thing about consumption. I sat down to write you on Substack today. I have 90 minutes to do it. And I will publish what comes out no matter what, warts and all. Because I’ve learned if I don’t, I won’t. I have just as many draft posts as I have published posts, on both Medium and Substack, drafts I never return to, and it’s a sorry pile indeed. So, no more screwing around. I’m just writing, and putting it out there. Raw. Real. Hopefully sometimes helpful.

The truth is, I can’t worry about that too much right now.

The truth is, I need to help myself.

The truth is, I’m a little worried about myself, and others are too.

But, guess what? I’m getting it together. I got real low last week, and it scared me. I’m not doing that anymore.

I was trying to say earlier, that watching movies (even great ones) every night may not be good for me, only because it’s isolating. I’m too isolated as it is. Here I am, in Madrid, my dream. I moved to Spain! La di dah!

I did. I did move to Spain. Four months ago.

And all I’ve been able to think about for the last several weeks is how to un-do it.

But, wait, where were we? Ah, yes. Consumption. My point is, I sat down in this cafe (“Lizandro”) down the street from my flat to write to you, my dear readers, and guess what? I bet you can guess what (nearly) happened.

I reflexively went for my phone. I reflexively went to check the usual… email, notifications, maybe even the dreaded NYT, which I check ad nauseum, making myself, yes, nauseous (and mortified) every time I peek at what “my” government is doing now.

And when I do this, begin consuming instead of creating, all bets are off. I can easily fill 45 minutes, an hour, two, with mindless scrolling.

So, yes, T. came. He’s a member of the tango community in San Francisco, and we types tend to stick together. I was glad he asked if he could stay with me during his time in Madrid. I easily said yes — months ago.

But as the date of his arrival approached, I grew trepidatious. I was too depressed to host someone, I thought. I was too down. I lacked the energy or interest to show anyone around. I was embarrassed. I didn’t even have a second coffee cup. And didn’t want to buy one.

Don’t get me started on how daring to be depressed while I’m supposedly living the dream only adds to the ill feeling.

I warned T. I said, Don’t expect me to show you around or anything. I’m struggling. I’m not even sure if I’m staying here.

That was true. I even booked a ticket home for April 1st, canceling it within 24 hours when I realized my lease contains a “particularly aggressive” clause according to ChatGPT that would allow my landlady to take my entire triple-deposit (supposedly “normal” for us foreigners). (Of course, ChatGPT did not spot this when I first fed it the contract before signing, asking if there were any red flags.)

T. said, It’s okay. I don’t need showing around. I said, Okay. Come.

He arrived. And you know what? Just having another human near me, nearby, helped immeasurably. It wasn’t immediate. It took a while. I was in a bad mood at the first tango milonga he planned for us. He danced with me a several times, and he’s a very fine dancer who’s been studying tango for more than 20 years. Then, I got a couple of dances from some Spanish fellows. When we got home several hours later, I knew it had been a move in the right direction.

We did it again the following night, and I felt even better afterwards.

We traipsed around the city on Saturday and Sunday. I was still low-energy, and even fought sudden tears near the Metro station on Easter, thinking about my daughter, missing her, feeling sorry for myself. T. didn’t notice, and life rolled along, as life does. The thing is, with each passing hour, over a period of about four days, I was further restored… to myself.

T. did that. And he didn’t have to be perfect to do it. We didn’t have to have heart-to-heart conversations. We didn’t need to click. We didn’t need to do anything. Just having another human to walk around and share a meal with now and again was restorative.

He restored me.

Or me allowing myself to be near another human restored me. It got me off the constant phone-scrolling, off the screens. Out of my head.

This was the opposite of consumption.

When T. arrived, I was busy consuming all manner of digital and social media, jumping from tab to tab, making ridiculous lists of things to do, freezing repeatedly in terror, with no idea what to do next, and generally freaking out.

I was being consumed from the inside out.

T.’s arrival allowed the outlines of my body to plump out a bit again. I was brought back into my body. I was restored.

Similarly, this morning, I sat on the couch and started a new library book. And just the act of reading steadied me. It’s Christine Rosen’s The Extinction of Experience. Guess what it’s about? You got it. It’s related to what’s happening to us as we cede our direct experience of the world to some kind of facsimile through the compelling portals we all carry around in our pockets.

The book begins with a quote: “Technology… the knack of so arranging the world so that we need not experience it.” —Max Frisch, Homo Faber (1957)

That caught my attention.

The next sentence that seared me was, “Behind the power we wield with our technologies is a timidity and aversion to risk.”

The author goes on to describe how we are being literally and figuratively dis-embodied by our phones and our choices vis a vis the digital world. What she means is that we are tending to “reject…the inconveniences and small hazards of face-to-face communication, the laborious but necessary practice of doing things with our hands, and the non-quantifiable experience of unmediated pleasure.”

Consumption. I sat down in this cafe called Lizandro, with it’s black-and-white-tiled floor and cheery, green-painted door. Music I don’t particularly like, of the house-genre ilk, plays behind the bar. A boy wearing a rugby shirt of orange-and-white stripes (whom I’m sure would not call himself a boy; he’s clearly a man, but you get my drift) sits beside me, intent on his own laptop.

A couple of young women at the round table before me gaze at a phone screen together. But they also lean back and laugh, gesture with their hands, and giggle. One of them wears a black silk scarf strewn with multi-colored polka dots in a kerchief-style on her head. The sun has come out, and the buckeye trees along the street hold their lantern-like pinnacles of pink and white blooms proudly aloft.

My son said again last night, in not so many words, Mom, fight. Fight for yourself. That was the sub-text. He’s said it all before. Try things, try anything. Are you going to bet on yourself?

Bet on myself.

What would that look like? Feel like?

I think it’s the opposite of consumption. I think it’s stepping out, connecting, standing up, straightening my back. I think it’s continuing to attend fitboxing. It’s meeting my neighbor tonight for a drink on a terrace I didn’t even know we had (?) on the top floor of my building. It’s going to tango. It’s walking around. It’s meeting more people, trying more things, and being much braver.

And it’s doing the work. Committing, following through, getting organized, and taking risks.

What choice do we have?

We have to continue to fight the good fight, whether we have the tools or not.

And even the smallest thing, like another human nearby, can pull us up.

I hate to say it, but maybe some of you will recognize the phenomenon. I opened Substack intending to write a post and began to be pulled in by Notes. Nay, before that even, when touched my computer, and it came to life, the first thing I saw was my Gmail inbox with a NYT article about how all the goons Trump pardoned are now committing heinous crimes, and I said, Yeah, you think? and I felt bitterness, real bitterness, clench my heart.

Then, I veered over to Substack to write you, my dear readers and subscribers, and began to be pulled in by Notes. Important Notes, I am sure, salient notes, fun notes, notes full of tips and links and fetching photos, and I thought about last night, and the night before, and the night before, and most likely the night before, when I lay in bed after midnight, peering up at my phone positioned over my face in the dark, reading Notes for… hours.

Again, cool Notes. Good Notes. I learned about people I wanted to follow. For example, I stumbled into an essay via Notes about a writer named Susan Minot, whom I’d heard of, whom I’m pretty sure I’d love, and I was really grateful to be reminded of this author.

And yet. And yet, I’m practically flaying at the edges in that I have no restraint, no constraint, and very little discipline, allowing my eyes to light upon the written word wherever it appears with little discernment. I mean, because my channels are mainly good stuff, I’m reading mostly good stuff, for example, the incredible essay Becoming a Centenarian in the New Yorker last night by Calvin Tompkins. I was so excited to read this journal-style piece, and I so liked the voice, and loved the man, and the whole time I read it, I thought about writing him and thanking him and telling him what his piece meant to me, only to read at the very end that he is gone. He reached his demise. And I was sad.

So, yes, this is quality material. But still. And. And, I’m not reading books, or not very well, anyway. I’m reading slowly, haltingly, when reading was always, since I was a child, one of my superpowers. It really was. And remembering this now makes the tears come.

You see, I was a great reader. I was that kid who slipped into the library at lunch, not just to avoid mean kids on the playground, but because I really preferred to be sprawled on my belly before the stacks, pulling out Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and Dr. Doolittle books, which I checked out from mean, parched Mrs. Tadisco by the stack and summarily lost. My parents had to be called in multiple times, dressed down, and charged lots of money. I was reprimanded and shamed. I don’t know why or how I lost everything, but I did seem to lose things.

Like coats. It seemed I was always losing my coat, and it incensed my mother. But, seriously, where were they going? There was nowhere but the coatroom to put them in elementary school. I don’t know why they weren’t findable. Why weren’t they there the next day? Why weren’t we directed to the Lost-and-Found? Were they stolen? Taken? This was in the tony community of Piedmont, so that doesn’t seem likely. All I know is, I was castigated on the regular about this and called “irresponsible,” which was one my mother’s favorite words for me.

But where was I? Ah, yes, reading. In fifth grade, I read Watership Down and every Agatha Christie book I could get my hands on. Also, all the wonderful James Herriot books, and so many more. I had a lamp attached to the rail of the top bunk that illuminated my books late into the night. My sisters slept in the two beds beneath me, unbothered by my little searchlight. I liked that snuggly feeling, perched above it all with my illuminated books.

In my 20s, I read many of South America’s most celebrated books of magic realism and a good deal of the classic Russian tomes. I was totally engrossed and so appreciated BART, the Bay Area’s subway, where I read standing up for hours, months, and years, and where the minutes passed like seconds.

I haven’t read like that in years, not since having kids, and my kids are now 28 and almost 25. That’s a problem I’ve been trying to correct for a long time. First, I was swept away by parenting books. I was determined to be a great mother, and I read everything I could get my hands on about how, exactly to do—to be—that.

After that, I suppose I just got carried away by parenting and work and the rest of it, as so many of us do. It didn’t help to have a seriously mentally ill partner, or to be doing everything by myself from the time my daughter was three-and-a-half years old, but them’s the breaks. Mostly, we had a charmed life on a beautiful street surrounded by caring neighbors and families with whom we socialized and threw epic block parties and even vacationed now and then.

No, it’s this digital reading, this electronic reading. I feel like it’s harming me somehow, at least the amount of it I’m doing. I’m reading Charlotte Wood’s Stoneyard Devotional on the Kindle my dear friend E. gave me before leaving for Madrid, and enjoying it. I’m not sure this counts as a screen. I mean, it is a screen, obviously, and I do prefer paper books, but it’s a screen that is not interrupted, crossed-over, or dinged upon. It does not emit sounds or have a plethora of buttons that will lead me down various alleys and rabbit holes like email, Substack Notes, the New York Times app, and all the other. You know the list. So, maybe Kindle is okay. It’s okay for now, and saving me from buying too many books. I think.

My point is, maybe I need to start to impose some hygiene around my habits and really commit to them.

I often ask myself, What if I just kept my promises to myself? What if I just did what I said I was going to do? What would that feel like?

Well, I can report with a smile and a softer visage that, I know what it feels like. I have a glimmer of that feeling, and here’s why.

Today, I attended my second fitboxing class around the corner. I got there early, as I told myself to do last night. I met César, my instructor for the day, who was just as warm and sweet as the last instructor. He helped me tape my hands and pull my gloves on while telling me a bit about himself in Spanish. He’s from Mexico City and has lived in Madrid for eight years, and he loves it because it’s relaxed, friendly, and “people know how to enjoy life here.” He kindly complimented me on my awful Spanish and briefed me on the boxing patterns we’d be doing.

The class was great. I arrived on an empty stomach and was careful not to over-exert myself. My scores on the board were one-third or less than everyone else’s, but I don’t care. I did the squats, lunges, (semi-) push-ups, jumping jacks, and then the boxing drills, hitting the bag tentatively, kicking the bag when I remembered. A couple of times, I actually put energy into my punch and had the thought that maybe it would be therapeutic, as my son said, once I learn the drills.

Leaving the gym, the world felt calmer, more stable. The Mexican cultural center across the street where artists have stretched a giant, multi-colored, woven, shawl-type thing across the entire front surface of this massive edifice seemed somehow more stolid, as if the exercise had — in calming my inner self — also stabilized the movements of my eyes, or my perception. It was an interesting, subtle realization. Not surprising of course, and yet… yes, it was surprising and interesting, and I’m glad I noted it.

So, I did that. I did what I said I was going to do.

Then, I did it again.

A few weeks ago, I posted on LinkedIn that I was launching a monthly mailing newsletter, that is, a three-page letter called Missive from Madrid for anyone who might like to receive such a thing. Then, I got scared, as is my wont. I wasn’t sure what to say, or how, I mean, what kind of voice, what kind of tone? Or how to print it… with photos? Drawings? I eschewed all that in the interest of costs. I’m charging $8./month, which, once I’ve bought envelopes, printed, and stamped, and after Stripe takes their cut, well… I’m probably making no money at all, especially since stamps are expensive here.

My point is, I did it. I wrote and mailed Missive from Madrid — April and just figured out that I’m making $2.40 per letter, not including my time of course, after paying for paper, envelopes, stamps, and printing. Whoopee! This little endeavor might not solve my budget woes, but it’s fun, and I feel good about it.

And, the point is, I DID IT. I wrote it, like I said I would, imperfectly, and straight from the heart. I printed it at a little office store around the corner and made little edits where needed. I stuffed the envelope (I currently have one subscriber), affixed two stamps to it, addressed it, walked over to Plaza de los Comendadores, and mailed the bugger.

And next month, I’ll do it again. And I’ll do it better.

Adios, Amigos.

P.S. If you perchance want to receive a physical letter from Madrid every month, you can subscribe here. After subscribing, please send me your mailing address at christiana.marie.white@gmail.com or send it via Substack message. :)

I’ve started several posts and shelved them, or to be accurate just sort of drifted away from them, and then when I went back, couldn’t really makes heads or tails of them. This one, by hook or by crook, I will publish. No matter if I’m satisfied with it. Because the point is to write, to break through the freeze that’s settling over me again.

You won’t be surprised to learn I’ve been racked with anxiety, and it’s been very difficult. I’m still getting over a two-week cold, which seems to have moved from my chest where it had stubbornly lodged into my ears (!), causing muffled hearing. I have an appointment to see an ENT doctor on April 10. It’s occurred to me I should go sooner, but when I called the doc’s office yesterday, it was just too hard to understand in Spanish what I had to do and where I had to go to make that happen. I gave up. I’ll wait for April 10, and in the meantime hope the stuffiness in both ears subsides.

I’m willing to write you now when I was loathe to do so before because, well, something changed. As I said, I’ve been frozen with fear. The kind of fear that fills your mouth with sawdust and strips your breath for what feels like minutes. The kind of anxiety that makes it impossible to see, take in, or experience much of anything.

I’ve been hiding too. And yet, in some weird way, it feels good. It feels “healthy,” affirming, like something I maybe need. Like it’s maybe healing. But then again, maybe not. It could be simple depression and its related inertia that’s making me stay in, stew chickpeas, and watch (incredible) films on Mubi nightly.

Yes, my dear friend B. gave me her Mubi log-on information, and I’m down the rabbit hole. I’ve seen some incredible flicks, including the brave, searing, difficult “Jaggi,” by Anmol Sidhu (2022) out of Rajasthan. Devastating, important, beautifully acted, and, well, unforgettable. You might wish you could forget it, however. But, no. That’s not true. It’s immeasurably sad, but the protagonist and his purity in the face of relentless cruelty will change you.

So many good flicks though, so many raw, cool films exploring taboo topics with courage and sensitivity. I’m thinking now of “Appropriate Behavior,” by Desiree Akhava (2014), a film about a young Iranian-American woman from Brooklyn grappling with her bisexual identity paired with her traditional Persian family values. The result is a humorous and daring portrayal of a confused young woman just trying to figure it out — who she is, who we are, what life is, how to live — you know, the whole enchilada.

So, yes. Film. Good film, but still — an escape. An escape from the frantic environment inside myself, and from connections with people. I had lunch with new friends last weekend. It was good; I’m glad I went. But, I had this weird sensation of floating above the table at times, observing. I couldn’t seem to fully engage.

Afterwards, I followed two of our friends to their apartment to pick up a couple of plants they had offered me. I felt honored and gratefully accepted the coffee offered, but within a few minutes, I felt… trapped, stifled, like I couldn’t breathe very well. I wanted to fling open all the windows. I wanted to collapse on the floor. I didn’t want to hold myself up anymore. I didn’t want to pretend. I didn’t want to play the role of new person getting to know new people anymore. I just wanted a friend I could collapse with, or against.

I missed Bubby, my friend who died a few years ago. Whenever I feel bereft and maximally confused, it’s him I want to call. He had a simple, natural way of dispensing wisdom, and I never doubted his love and regard. I felt utterly safe with him. He could navigate the world. The world seemed easy for him.

But of course, this was just my perception, and a faulty one at that. In reality, he messed his life up pretty bad at the end, marrying a much younger woman who turned out to be cruel, vicious, and abusive. When he’d extricated himself from that mess, he took to drinking. The hard stuff. Mid-day. All day. He came down with liver cancer and died a terrible death, alone, isolated, abandoned, four hours down the coast from Istanbul, waiting for his son and granddaughter who never arrived.

His life before that rocky ending was pretty sparkly, full of sailing, travel, champagne, elegance, lovely friends. He had a rarefied sense of taste, design, and style. He taught me all about the best music and art. And he made me crab dinners on the regular. And, oh so many other delights. Just being in his aura soothed me, every time. Time slowed down. “Hey, cutie,” he’d say when I’d arrive. Aging was hard for him. He resisted it, he feared it. And he was terrified of exactly what came to pass: dying alone and in pain. (Morphine isn’t allowed in Turkey. Don’t die in Turkey.)

When I visited him in Istanbul toward the end, he said, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be cancer.” He was embarrassed by it. He wanted to fall from a sailboat, or taken by a heart attack at sea. Something romantic like that. Cancer was beneath him. And it’s true. It was.

But, where was I? Okay. I have a lunch in an hour, with a man I met briefly on an expat Facebook group. I think he’s married. This is a networking lunch. If I like and trust him, I might go out on a limb and ask him if he knows any eligible bachelors as well. I’ve decided I want to seriously date and find my mate. I don’t want to do this alone anymore.

I have to shower and get dressed, so time is limited, and if I don’t publish this immediately, it will also go into the “Drafts” bin.

What I’m trying to say is that after days and days, and weeks and weeks, where I’ve been wandering around in a fog of fear, absolutely dismayed by myself, my mind, my choices, my fears, today is different, and here’s why.

I went to kickboxing! My son made me promise to go at least three weeks ago. I did promise. I even committed to specific days, and I didn’t go. I disappointed myself, and my son. True, I had this vicious cold, the third cold since arriving in Madrid on December 1, but still.

Anyway, I went today. I nearly missed it. I had my phone off, forgot to check my schedule the night before. Somehow, I remembered at 9:26 a.m. that I had registered for my first fitboxing class for 9:30, around the corner. I threw on my clothes and dashed out. I was late; the class had begun, but the young man was very kind and solicitous. He set me up while barking instructions at the other students. He wrapped my hands in yellow tape and fitted my boxing gloves over them. I’m smiling and even laughing now as I write this. Lol. Yes, this old lady went to fitboxing. I was definitely the oldest person in the room, quite possibly by a couple of decades. But, who cares?

I was terrible of course, but that wasn’t the point. I did the warm up, hit the bag a few times, “jab, cross, hook, uppercut.” The bag hardly moved, and I couldn’t get the sequences down very well, but of course it didn’t matter. I broke a sweat, did some lunges, some crunches, some stretches. And I sprang for the membership in the spirit of “trusting that things will work out,” as my yoga teacher said.

It felt good. It felt good to get out, to exercise, try something new, engage with a youth, break a sweat, and then to sit in the park on the corner for the first time, beneath a small forest of trees decked out in a coat of tender, new, apple-green leaves.

I looked around. I noted the parapets on a nearby building and wondered if I’d ever seen them before. A dog stopped near me, inclining his body my direction. I chuckled. I recognized that move, as my dog who died last year used to do the same: sidle up to folks in hopes of a pat. I obliged, and her owner stopped, and we connected. She said, in Spanish, her dog was six years old. She’d rescued her from a street in Cuba. She was near death. “She had about a week to live,” said the woman. We commisserated on dogs we’d each lost, her former dog three years ago, and of course, my Daisy.

Then, I walked home, made a coffee, made a toast with thick-cut marmalade and three massive, shining strawberries arrayed in their tight, red, speckled coats. I bought them the other day at the incredible market up the street, Mercado Villahermosa, where I also buy heads of escarole the size of medicine balls and deep burgundy, taut bell peppers, practically quivering with vitality.

Now, I’m listening to Diana Krall, finishing my fast-cooling coffee, and getting ready to get ready for my lunch date around the corner at El Mano, an elegant local taberna.

The fear has lifted some. And, I have good news to report. I do have a client: one client, and it’s so much fun to work again. Who’d ever thunk I’d say that? Not me, that’s for sure.

I have a lot of work to do. My therapist seems to have abandoned me. I tried to date and got stood up by one guy and catfished by another, but that’s okay. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.

This whole life is a series of trying, isn’t it? And would I return my marble for another? No, I would not. That means I have a blessed life. Or so I learned this week from Warren Buffet, who apparently said, “Assume that every person currently alive, all eight billion souls on Earth, is a marble placed in a massive jar. If given the opportunity, would you put your marble in with the others, shake the jar, take another marble at random, and live that life instead? If the answer is no, then you know you have a blessed life.”

My son turned 28 yesterday, and I couldn’t be prouder of him. I sent my (“no-contact”) daughter a second letter this week, care of my son, and I’m happy about that and feel good about it, and it doesn’t even matter if she gets it, opens it, or whatever. Expressing myself to her, even if it’s just through the ether, through the universe, through God, feels important and right.

Okay, it’s time to go. Thank you for reading, for listening, for your good will, for your attention to this matter (sorry, couldn’t resist). I promise to keep fighting the good fight. The alternative isn’t an option. Just know, life is hard. It’s supposed to be. And it’s still a blessing.

The subtitle is over-confident. I say I’m building a new life, but it’s more like I’m being dragged kicking and screaming into a new life, after blowing up my old, perfectly good one in California.

Here I find myself in Madrid, “living the dream.” I claim that I’m not happy even though I am here, I did it, I pulled it off… I claim I remain unhappy because of financial pressures, and that’s largely true. But my son calls bullshit.

“Mom, you’re addicted to fear,” he says. God, what a thing to hear, and from one’s own child.

The beautiful part, of course, is that he believes in me. Do the thing, he says. Embrace your life. Stop looking for a job. Go after the life you really want. The life you’ve always dreamed of.

Write every day. Write every day on Medium and weekly on Substack. And Mom?

Yes, I say meekly.

Send an email to an editor daily. One email a day to one editor.

I promised to do this.

And guess what? I did it. Today. Finally. I published the daily essay and pitched an editor. Then, I worked on an essay-tracking spreadsheet. Then, I made a list of editors to pitch. Then, I began trying to figure out a structure for a memoir draft I have to have in hand by September.

In Lily King’s Heart the Lover, the narrator claims she writes first drafts of her novels in single-subject, spiral-bound notebooks. She said it only take about two notebooks to produce a novel. And, she writes in pencil.

When I read this, I left the house with hope in my heart, again. I bought four single-subject, spiral-bound notebooks and a box of pencils, a pencil sharpener, and an eraser. And a mechanical pencil to boot.

And they have sat where I left them in my new Madrid apartment for weeks.

Yesterday, I searched whether Lily King also uses this method to write her novels. Sure enough, she does, at least according to the articles I skimmed.

Today, I gaze at the black-and-orange-striped pencils I placed in a mug with hope and bemusement.

Whenever I thought about bringing a notebook and a pencil to the cafe, I got scared. I didn’t want to try and discover I felt silly. I couldn’t face the blank page. I couldn’t face the mean voice that would begin to flay me. I couldn’t try and fail. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t.

This morning, I thought, I will take pencils and notebook, just for fun, to the nearby library, and I will LEAVE BEHIND my phone and my laptop. That suddenly seemed possible and like a good idea. It’s worth a try, anyway, and it didn’t scare me to death. I haven’t tried it yet, however.

Working with ChatGPT today, I discovered I have 700+ published and draft essays on Medium and Substack. ChatGPT averred I likely already have a draft memoir in those essays, essays that can be further developed and worked into a frame or structure. The model then offered to help me identify a progression. It gave me hope, this. It did.

The big news I have to report today is that I kept my promise to my son, and more importantly, to myself. I published an essay on Medium, and I sent a pitch to an editor. I made a tracking spreadsheet, and I have a list of editors to approach in the coming days.

What would happen if you took yourself seriously? a therapist asked me at least 15 years ago. I didn’t know. I didn’t know quite what he meant by taking myself seriously. I was not a serious person. Riven by drama, yes. But serious? Not particularly, I’m afraid.

I’m working on codependence with my current therapist, and with individuation. He scarily said two weeks ago, I don’t think you ever individuated. That’s as appalling as it sounds. I’m 57, for Christ’s sake. If I haven’t individuated yet, when will I?

Individuating, as far as I can tell, has to do with owning oneself, one’s life and voice, one’s preferences. It’s learning to trust your own preferences and intuition. And—importantly—it’s doing this without the need to explain, justify, or apologize. What a concept!

There is pain when buds burst, said the caption beneath the photo of the young adolescent in the book of photography my friend S. gave me as a teenager. Indeed there is.

Buds are bursting all over the place now. Up and down my street, and in my heart. Maybe it’s a bud that burst when tears gathered in my eyes as I watched the young mother in the cafe this morning dandle her infant in her lap, and then place him or her right on the table, facing out, like a little Buddha, no taller than a vase.

My therapist said my anxiety, when I’m in the throes of it, prevents me from experiencing the present moment. My life passes by while I’m riven by regret for past decisions and terror at future catastrophes. It’s such a bad way to live.

My “scarcity mindset” as my son calls it prevents me from feeling gratitude for what I have now, which, of course, is so much.

On Monday, in the Metro on my way to my tango class, I strode past a man crumpled in a wheelchair with a sign above his head, fastened to the back of his chair, that read, “Vendo cupcakes.” I was already halfway up the escalator when I read the sign, and my heart shuddered. I was deeply moved, and caustic with myself. You think you can’t get a job. Look. Even this man is trying, and see how much dignity he has. How much courage.

And tears gathered. A bud burst.

I’m emotional lately, and that’s a good sign.

Mom, feel the feelings, my son says. Go deeper.

I have more good news to report. I have had fleeting moments of self-compassion, times when I’ve wanted to wrap my arms around myself. Times when I feel immense love well up for the scared little girl I was, the confused teen, the terrified young adult, the grieving mother.

And also, a kinship. Life is hard for all of us, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. No one has this thing figured out. No one. And all of us will meet our demise. And all of us hope to leave some sort of legacy or sensibility, some sort of there, there. Some sort of meaning or purpose. A purpose-driven life.

How does one achieve that?

I got one step closer today. In keeping my promise to myself and my son, my life meant something today. It had a purpose, it had a shape, it had inner momentum, it stemmed from something inside. Maybe, just maybe, I individuated today, just a little bit.

At Ventas, I emerged onto a drizzly plaza dominated by an arresting bullring called Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, or simply Las Ventas. Astounded, I gazed up at the massive Neo-Mudéjar-style complex.

When I was finally able to close my mouth, I caught my connecting train, got off at the recommended stop, and walked four minutes to my new doctor’s office at Clinica Palacios, with a minute to spare. My new doctor introduced herself. In excellent English, she asked me the standard questions, and then said if she was to be my doctor, she’d like to conduct a full exam, which in Spain (apparently) includes a pap, a sonogram of my uterus and pelvis, a mammogram, a sonogram of my breast tissue, and a bone densitometry (DEXA) scan to check for osteoporosis.

When I expressed surprise at this vast array of diagnostic tests, Dr. Trujillo clucked her tongue and said coolly, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t do this. I couldn’t help but hear an indictment of current U.S. healthcare protocols. I asked, Do you have other American patients who also have not had these tests? She said, Absolutely and shook her head.

I liked Dr. Trujillo. She’s no-nonsense, almost brusque, but I sense she’s committed, smart, and caring beneath her professional exterior. None of the staff I encountered in the various testing rooms spoke English, and I didn’t try very hard in Spanish. I instinctively wanted the staff to know how minimal my comprehension was so they wouldn’t assume I’d understood something important. An odd choice maybe since at least attempting to speak Spanish is always appreciated, and I’m certain everyone on the other end of my attempts can tell immediately how limited my language skills are.

The result was I had to be led, pushed, and prodded like a small child into place multiple times by this army of young women. I was uneasy, but no more so perhaps than at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland where, yes, I understand the language, but more often than not wind up feeling like a mechanical part on a conveyor belt rather than anything resembling a human.

Before I left, one of the women at the front desk scheduled me to return for test results the following month, reminding me to skip breakfast so they could do the blood work. With my new 90-euro-per-month Sanitas health insurance, there was no co-pay.

I hopped back on the Metro and made it, again with a minute to spare, to my government appointment at Ciudad Lineal for my empadronamiento, my Certificate of Registration in Spain and an important step toward securing the all-important NIE (Número de Identificación de Extranjero). I was beckoned through a metal detector that I don’t believe was working, given a ticket with an alphanumeric code, and asked to take a seat in one of the rows of blue plastic chairs near the window. There were maybe twelve others waiting.

A few minutes later, my number was called. The woman at the corresponding window asked me in Spanish if I had an appointment. I said I did. She couldn’t find me in the system. I called Carlos, my friend’s attorney, who had helped me secure the appointment. He spoke to the woman. It turns out she thought my middle name was the first part of my last name (this happens a lot here). The woman then directed me back to the entrance for a different number, one for folks with appointments. I returned to the waiting area again. Not two minutes later, my number appeared on a screen. Since it wasn’t flashing as the one above it was, I waited.

A woman appeared and called my name. The edge in her voice indicated I had indeed missed my cue. I rose and followed her to her window, where a pane of glass with a low opening separated us. She asked me for my documents. I gave her the ones I had in physical form, and said I had two of them in email. She hesitated, sighed, and then tapped on an email address printed on a strip of paper taped to the other side of the glass. I forwarded the emails with the requested documents. She printed them out, keyed some information into a terminal, and rubber-stamped a few papers.

Then, she looked up at me and said, in Spanish, Your Spanish is good, upon which tears immediately sprang to my eyes. She gave me the copy of my housing contract that she’d kindly printed along with the coveted and all-important empadronamiento, which I am to bring to my NIE appointment on Friday, and I was out, making my way back to the Metro.

I decided to go to the market my landlady had told me about, Mercado de Vallehermoso, but somehow wound up at Mercato Ballaró, the Italian restaurant said landlady had recommended. It was 1:30 p.m., on the early side for lunch in Spain, and besides, I was sure I was at the market. I assumed the restaurant was an exterior stall of some sort, part of the larger covered market, but after making my way halfway around the block in the rain, I checked Google Maps again and learned I was nowhere near the market. So, I ducked out of the rain for an Italian lunch of fried artichokes, light and round as cookies, with a delightful crunch; pappardelle with venison sugo; a glass of Ribera; and a light-as-a-cloud and not-too-sweet tiramisu for dessert. More than I had intended to spend for lunch, but still one-third what I would have paid in California for the same meal. I offset the cost by skipping dinner.

Last night, I attended my marvelous writing group at The Secret Kingdoms in charming Barrio de las Letras. This was only my second visit to the club, my first being the week before Christmas. That one was sparsely attended, I now realize. Last night, we had twice as many people. Chairs filled the room, with at last 12 around a large rectangular table and a grouping of small armchairs in a semi-circle by the back wall.

We had a structure last night, and I found myself treated to a marvelous poetry workshop by a lovely, passionate, and gifted young poetess who opened with a discussion of the question, why write poetry at all?

Thus began an incredibly rich two hours during which we explored that question; traditional forms such as sonnets, villanelles, and haikus; contemporary forms; rhythm, meter, and rhyme (I learned that emotions reside in the part of the brain where music is stored); titling styles; line breaks and poem shapes; and prose poems.

Works as diverse as The Cremation of Sam McGee, the King James Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Achilles in Vietnam, The Pillow Book, and the Epic of Gilgamesh came up in the discussion. Ben Lerner, a recent favorite of mine, came up vis a vis his piece The Hatred of Poetry.

We took turns reading the poems our young instructress had printed on white pieces of paper trimmed to the size and relative shape of each poem. In addition to a quote by Ursula K. LeGuin on “message,”1 we read Joy Sullivan’s Why Read Poetry If It Won’t Make You Rich, Todd Dillard’s How to Live, something by Paige Lewis, and Ellen Bass’ Relax (a very good one for me).

Then, our instructor gave us some pointers. She said, 1) Get obsessed. It’s okay to write multiple poems about the same thing, 2) Write for yourself, 3) Run the tap, i.e., just write to clear the pipes, 4) Keep track of words you love, and 5) Create words. Then, she gave us exactly five minutes to write a poem.

Here’s mine:

Empadronamiento
On the way here
I passed the toreador ring
in the rain
Now, I wait for my number
to be called
It’s called
I don’t hear it
A woman with frizzled hair
appears
hand on hip
before the rows of chairs
where I
and the others
wait
for government favors
She calls my name
I stand
and follow
I annoy her again
I don’t have physical
copies
I am sure she will throw me out
Instead, she works with me
Email it here
She taps the strip
of white paper
taped to the glass
I do
She puts her head down
Things begin to happen
Fingers on keyboard
Printer whirring
Then, she raises
her head and
says in Spanish,
Your Spanish is good
The tears well up